


why don't you feel it (i can't stop loving you)

by mondeblue



Series: egg scene [1]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Slow Build, Slow Burn, accidentally made jae an Angst Character whoops, brian is always confused, i loved you mv, just ignore when you love someone mv bc it destroys this timeline lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-18 22:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12397422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mondeblue/pseuds/mondeblue
Summary: work was originally titled 'egg scene' so at least you know how this travesty happened“Yeah.” Jae gives a lopsided, one-shouldered shrug, and it takes a little time, but soon enough the easy smile’s back on his face, lifting the tension off the atmosphere. “Don’t blame him for his shit. He probably doesn’t know he’s doing it.”“Right,” Brian says absentmindedly, staring at Dowoon, once again secluded in the corner near the trash can. “Right.”He’s not going anywhere near that guy again.(To his credit, he manages to keep up the act for an entire week.)





	1. hi hello

**Author's Note:**

> hi yes i'd like to apologize in advance

September opens up as expected for Brian Kang.

His dad is renovating something again - the home theatre, judging from where the drilling is coming from - and now his lunch will probably taste like sawdust and sweat. His mom is enjoying her morning coffee, dressed to the nines in a silk blouse and designer pencil skirt (it’s Dolce & Gabbana today, he thinks), glittering like sunlight on a lake from all the diamonds gleaming at her neck and wrists and peering out through her hair. They share an exasperated look at his dad’s antics, but they have the money and the patience to humor whatever project he’s decided to embark on, so they stay silent as usual.

“Have fun at school, dear,” Brian’s mom says as he flits about the house, hastily grabbing his school supplies with little time to spare before the bus pulls up at his stop. “Are you sure you don’t want Charles to drive you?”

Brian rolls his eyes. “Mom, did you forget about the looks on everyone’s faces when I showed up on the first day of school in a Tesla? Trust me, they don’t need to be reminded of how much money you make. And besides,” he juts his chin in the general direction of his father’s presumed location, “that’d just be undoing Dad’s wishes.”

“Whatever makes you happy, honey,” she sighs, pressing maroon-colored lips to his temple fleetingly as he runs out the door, shoelaces untied. “See you this afternoon!”

And so his morning goes, in the same predictable way as it does nearly every day.

(Except, not really.)

\--

It’s the first day of school and already he’s gotten giggled at by at least a dozen freshman girls, and combined with having to reject the same groupies from last year it’s no wonder he tosses his backpack onto his desk with a little more force than necessary, crumpling into the chair like all the solidity has been drained from his limbs.

Seated next to him, Jae grins knowingly. “They’ve already started, huh?”

“I fucking hate everything,” Brian groans, throwing an arm over his eyes dramatically. “Why can’t they just leave me alone? What did I do to deserve this?”

Jae’s fringe shifts as he raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe dyeing your hair purple and literally _dripping_ designer clothes might have something to do with it?” Unlike others, Jae isn’t scared of or attracted to Brian’s wealth - one of the reasons they became friends in the first place - opting instead to force Brian into treating him to McDonald’s nearly every other day, despite the latter’s insistence that he’ll regret it when he’s living with every type of diabetes and heart disease known to man.

Brian makes a sound that grates against his throat, sinking lower into the chair. “I can’t even argue with you right now. Why are we friends when you’re always right? This is a very unbalanced relationship.”

“You’re right,” Jae deadpans. “Maybe we should just break up.”

Brian glares. He's about to throw his 20-pound backpack at the fucker’s head when his wandering eyes catch in the direction of the door, and Brian can actually see him gulp as he visibly shrinks away, crowding his entire body as close to the wall as possible. “No,” he mumbles, hands reaching up to grip his hair, glasses sliding down his nose as panic seems to rattle his bones. Brian swears he can see his hands shaking.

“Hey, man, are you okay?” he asks, leaning forward, because Jae only gets like this when something from his past resurfaces, all small and trembling and purple. And anything that comes from Jae’s past means bad news.

But Jae can’t hear him, knuckles white against the yellow of his hair as he begins mumbling under his breath. Brian catches on to something like “he’s not supposed to be here” repeated an alarming amount of times and, frustrated by the lack of responsiveness, spins around in his chair to see which asshole has turned the literal sun into a downpour.

But the only person who’s even close to the door is quite possibly the most invisible, unnoticeable person on the surface of the Earth. Brian’s eyes rake the boy’s skinny figure for anything that could possibly hint at his ties to Jae’s past, glossing by and immediately forgetting black hair, downturned eyes and hunched shoulders, the only thing noteworthy being the glint of an earring catching in the sun, a point of brightness in an otherwise forgettable existence. (Is that mean? Probably.) Brian doesn’t remember him from last year or the year before that - or maybe that’s because he seems like the kind of person that doesn’t _want_ to be remembered. A ghost, really.

So why is Jae reacting like _that_?

Brian opens his mouth, about to ask, but it’s then that the teacher bursts in, a tall, middle-aged man with a harried set to his mouth and a never-quite-fully-tucked shirt bottom. He’s holding a few papers in his hand, and he stops to scan the room before zooming in on the newcomer, letting out a relieved “Ah!” and hurrying to stand next to him. “Yoon Dowoon! There you are.”

 _Dowoon_. Huh. Brian doesn’t recognize that name - then again, Brian doesn’t recognize many of the names that still haunt his best friend. Most of the time he forgets, forgets how reluctant Jae is to open up despite his sunny disposition and unwavering nonchalance. And yet, despite trusting him like his own brother, a fresh bolt of bitterness shoots through his veins every time he’s reminded of how distant they really are.

He doesn’t stew in it for long, though, because it’s then that the girls sitting in front of him begin to talk, in that loud hiss that people do when they’re only trying to whisper for appearances’ sake. Brian doesn’t even try to eavesdrop - it’s almost like they’re forcing him to listen.

“See that guy? The really quiet one who just came in? He’s a freshman,” and suddenly Brian feels less bad about not recognizing him and more _what the fuck_ because a freshman? In an eleventh grade math class? He doesn’t even know the guy and he already kind of wants to hate him. “Apparently if you get close enough to him he’s pretty cute. Forgettable, though.”

“Just my type, then,” the other responds, and Brian’s only semi-thankful their resulting giggles drown out the retching sound he makes, shadowy, ghost-like Dowoon forgotten.

\--

Until after school. God, after school.

The bell rings, melodic in an almost mocking way, and now he’s left to decide - either leave first, or wait until everyone’s long gone before packing up his stuff. It’s the easiest way to make sure people don’t approach him - or, at least, the ones who can’t keep up or aren’t willing to risk missing buses to talk to him. And the stragglers, well - he could just glare them into submission.

It sounds bad, he knows. He’d tried to be nicer freshman year, but he’s learned that people just take it as an invitation to latch onto him like leeches and use him for his mom’s money. Besides, it’s easier emanating a general ‘fuck off’ aura; he doesn’t have to deal with bullshit like being polite or reading body language, things he didn’t care much for in the first place. He doesn’t have to deal with all the prom invites, all the notifications sending his phone vibrating off his desk-

Fuck. Where the fuck is his phone?

Brian makes an aggressive U-turn and sprints back to his last period classroom, grateful people have learned to get out of his way by now, berating himself for leaving it there, for committing such a stupid mistake. Because after school is the worst time, where mob mentality overcomes the fear he’s worked so hard to instill into admirers’ hearts, and now they’ll be waiting for him, they’ll see him, they’ll try and talk to him.

 _Fucking hell, Brian_.

Sure enough, his stomach drops to the soles of his feet as he approaches the classroom - or, rather, what he can see of it, because there’s at least a dozen people crowded around the entrance, a buzz running over the tops of their heads and Brian can only _pray_ no one’s taken his phone. He pulls the hood of his sweater over his hair - unfortunately, Jae was right about the purple only making his situation worse - and tries to shoulder his way back in. _Please don’t notice me_ , he pleads. _Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me_.

“Oh my god, it’s him! It’s Brian Kang!”

_Fucking hell._

He plants his feet to keep from getting knocked over as a tidal wave of shifting momentum moves to center in on him, perfume and batting eyelashes and hair curled around fingers engulfing his vision. It’s hot, and stifling, and Brian wants to scream because _stop, can’t you see that this won’t make me fucking like you?_ There’s not even a point in finding his phone anymore, or even catching his bus, any hope of having a good day draining out into the floor.

And then cold fingers wrap around his wrist, and he’s being dragged out of the crowd so fast that he doesn’t even have time to react as his shoulder joint is nearly yanked out of its socket. His feet trip over themselves, slamming into the tiled floor, and he nearly breaks his nose on a locker door left ajar before he’s dragged into the boy’s washroom, stuffed into a stall, and locked in with a resolute slam of the door.

He blinks, enraged. “What the _hell_ -”

“You’re welcome.”

He blinks again, this time for an entirely different reason.

It’s Dowoon.

Yoon _fucking_ Dowoon.

Yoon fucking Dowoon holding his phone out to him with the same boredom in his eyes and slackness in his face that he’s been sporting all day, Yoon fucking Dowoon crowded close to him in the smallness of the stall. Yoon fucking Dowoon barely audible over the sound of the crowd waiting just outside the bathroom door, Yoon fucking Dowoon who had wrapped an icy hand around his wrist and pulled him so hard he endangered his life to- to _rescue_ him?

Brian is so, so confused.

“Thanks,” he remembers to say, trying not to look at those startlingly emotionless eyes because, yeah, that girl from first period was kind of right, as reluctant as he is to admit it. Up close, he _is_ kind of cute. You know, in a weird, creepy, machine-cold kind of way. “You didn’t have to.”

Dowoon shrugs. “You might need to stay here for a bit,” he says, which Brian only realizes is a goodbye when he’s unlocking the stall door and stepping out, dusting off his black jeans.

And it’s weird, because he kind of doesn’t want him to go. Sure, yeah, he’s creepy and cold and probably thinks Brian’s stupid because the guy is obviously a genius, but the prospect of waiting in a dirty high school bathroom stall until the crowd outside disappears and the only people left in the school are the janitors (who pity him too much to yell at him for staying so late) is terrible, and he wants any company he can get.

So Brian closes his eyes, berates himself a little bit so he won’t feel so stupid later when his entire plan has gone down the drain, and says, “Wait.”

Dowoon pauses, eyeing him from underneath his jet-black fringe, and _shit_ , he hadn’t planned his far ahead.

“Uh… have you eaten yet?” he blurts out, because he’s suddenly become awkward and laughable and the day has gone to complete shit. “You didn’t seem to have brought anything for lunch, so…” he trails off, toeing at the gritty floor, regretting everything.

To his surprise (and slight indignation), Dowoon lets out a humorless laugh, expression eerily frozen. “You have a weird way of returning favors,” is all he says, before he’s gone.

He’s gone.

“What the fuck?” Brian asks the air.

\--

Sure enough, he misses his bus and is forced to wait until everyone leaves before calling his chauffeur and asking him to pick him up - “in the most nondescript, middle-class vehicle possible,” he pleads.

Charles rolls up to the front doors in a yellow Porsche.

“What did I say,” Brian yells, dropping his backpack in the backseat and climbing in without bothering to open the door, “about being as nondescript as possible?”

Charles grins at him. “Your dad took the BMW. It was either this or the Tesla.”

“Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath, and Charles laughs before peeling out of the parking lot.

He arrives home in a funk, going through his after-school routine a little more aggressively - slamming the door behind him, tossing his shoes so they scuff the wall, dropping his backpack from such a dangerous height he swears he hears something break - and stalking into the kitchen to eat his feelings.

“How was your first day?” His dad yells from - somewhere, he honestly doesn’t have the capacity to care.

“Complete shit,” he answers, dumping half the contents of the fridge onto the counter.

_Fuck Yoon Dowoon._

\--

The next morning, Brian stares intently at the door, fully intending to yell at Dowoon for being such an ass the day before. Beside him, Jae is talking away, some outrageous story that Brian already knows not to believe one bit of. There’s barely a minute left until class starts, but he wouldn’t put it past Dowoon to have shit punctuality as well as terrible manners.

The boy walks in just as the bell rings, shoved suddenly against the door as another student frantically dashes in, desperate to maintain perfect attendance. Despite his pride, Brian honestly feels kind of bad watching the scene as Dowoon winces and rubs his shoulder where he’d slammed into the frame - the first sign of humanity he’s seen in the guy. Nevertheless, Brian has some telling off to do, so he marches over there anyways, stuffing any gross feelings like sympathy into the empty chair behind him.

“What the hell was all that about, yesterday? ‘You have a weird way of returning favors?’ Gee, man, I’m sorry I offended you by being a _nice person_ and _caring for your health,_ ” Brian hisses, nearly straining his neck trying to look Dowoon in the eye because _talk about shifty_.

“I-” he starts, but whatever he was meaning to say gets lost because it’s then that he spots something just past Brian’s shoulder, something apparently so appalling and offensive that his eyes harden, and Brian swears he can feel the temperature in the room drop, a shiver dripping down his spine. Dowoon closes his eyes for what seems like an eternity before opening them again, biting out a quiet, piercing “I never should’ve helped you” before shouldering past him without looking back.

Shouldering past Brian. With his _injured shoulder._ What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Brian asks, but it’s then that the teachers runs in, clapping to silence the class, and he has to return to his seat, eyes lingering on Dowoon’s back.

\--

“Okay,” he says, having already rehearsed this conversation all throughout second period, running through all the possible outcomes given how much he knows of Jae’s personality. “I know me asking about middle school is, like, the worst thing I could do, but I need to know. What the fuck is up with Dowoon?”

Jae pauses mid-chew, expression thankfully not taking on any of the variations on horrified and closed off that Brian had been bracing himself for. “I, uh…” he swallows - harder than necessary for food - and refuses to look up, frames of his perched-low glasses cutting clear across his eyes. “Did some… pretty bad shit to him. Like, permanently-damaging kind of shit. If he acts weird towards you, it’s probably because you’re friends with me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brian breathes, running a hand through his bleach-brittle hair, phrases like _permanently-damaging_ and _fucked up_ scrambling his already messy of a mind. “What the hell did you do, Jae? What did you do that was so bad?”

He knows he’s pushing it - he usually doesn’t even dare _mention_ middle school, letting Jae open up to him at his own pace, much less ask question after question, but Jae doesn’t seem to mind, pausing his actions to think. He looks a little tortured, a little regretful, a little James Dean with his hair in his eyes and all that untold past dragging behind him, but he answers anyways. “It wasn’t what I did so much as _when_ I did it,” he says slowly, choosing every word carefully. “I don’t know all that much, but there were rumors. About him living alone, no parents, no siblings. When he was _eleven_.”

“Jesus,” he repeats, because apparently that’s all he can say now. “That’s some… that’s some heavy stuff.”

“Yeah.” Jae gives a lopsided, one-shouldered shrug, and it takes a little time, but soon enough the easy smile’s back on his face, lifting the tension off the atmosphere. “Don’t blame him for his shit. He probably doesn’t know he’s doing it.”

“Right,” Brian says absentmindedly, staring at Dowoon, once again secluded in the corner near the trash can. “Right.”

He’s not going anywhere near that guy again.

\--

To his credit, he manages to keep up the act for an entire week.

It’s not like it was particularly difficult; Dowoon’s begun acting more hostile towards him, choosing to completely ignore his existence. And it’s not like they were friends, or even acquaintances for that matter, before. The only thing Brian has to lose from his new resolution is the fact that he still, maybe, technically, owes Dowoon one. For saving him that one time.

Either way, he can’t make it up to the guy even if he wanted to - Dowoon emanates such a cold aura, contracting hypothermia is a legitimate concern within ten metres of him. For Brian, at least.

Whatever. It's fine. He's fine.

Or at least, he _was_ fine until two weeks into the school year and a week into staying as far away from Dowoon as possible, their regular teacher rings in sick and the last-minute supply turns out to be a visibly unimpressed 20-something year old woman who gives them the entire period to work on four textbook questions and ‘whatever else you’ve got’ before sinking low into the teacher’s seat to read a battered copy of _Ender’s Game_. Brian, as expected, spends only ten minutes doing actual work until Jae slides his phone onto his desk and they spend the rest of the period looking at memes.

(And sure, maybe Brian _does_ glance in Dowoon’s direction a lot, but that’s only because the clock is in the same vicinity. It’s not his fault his eyes accidentally land on him as he’s turning back.)

He’s snickering at a text post when a chorus of giggles rises from the side of the classroom, right at the place Brian’s found his eyes catching on every so often. He turns, as does nearly everyone else in the room, and suddenly his blood is boiling.

Because Yoon Dowoon, the Yoon Dowoon who doesn’t eat lunch in favor of getting ahead on homework, the Yoon Dowoon whose sleeplessness casts more shadows across his face than the actual sun, that same Yoon Dowoon is forsaking an hour of free work time to sleep. Not the bored kind of purposeful sleep, discreet and out-of-sight, but the most painful kind, accidental after staying awake for countless hours until your body literally shuts down in protest. Brian sees his slumped figure, spine curved uncomfortably against the grain of the desk, and despite all that’s happened in the past week he can’t help but feel bad for the guy.

And also, _what the fuck_?

 _What the fuck_ because Brian can barely see him through the crowd of girls that have suddenly enveloped him like a swarm of flesh-eating flies, giggling and gossiping and - Brian wants to throw up - _taking pictures_ of Dowoon sleeping, not even trying to be considerate of the limp shell of a person finally taking the break he deserved. Brian knows this well; recognizes that they see Dowoon less as a human being and more as a plot device, a blank slate on which they’re free to scribble any and all of their irrational expectations. A voodoo doll, made for them to toy around with.

And maybe it’s because the darkness underneath and within Dowoon’s eyes have been getting progressively worse with each passing day, or maybe it’s because Brian’s had to deal with the parasites, too, and that’s not something he’d wish on anyone, cold demeanor or otherwise, or maybe it’s because Brian is _really fucking stupid_ , but either way he hears himself snapping, “Can’t you just let the poor guy get some sleep?”

Their voices crescendo at that, raising to unbearably irritating octaves as they promptly shoo him away, wildly gesturing hands brushing against Dowoon’s hair, bumping into his angled shoulder. He winces. Next to him, Jae winces. The teacher winces. The entire school winces. Obama winces.

The bell does, too, ringing harshly to harmonize perfectly with the girls’ voices, drowning out his scoff as he grabs his bag and doesn’t so much tuck his chair in than throw it at the desk, shouldering past classmates to get to the door.

_So much for being a good person._

\--

“Why did you do that?”

Brian startles and curses, his life flashing past his eyes. (It’s quite disappointing.) “Jesus, Dowoon.”

In front of him, having apparently materialized in the five seconds it’d taken him to tie his shoes, Dowoon opens his mouth, eyes hard and resolute and tired, before Brian’s words are fully processed through his brain and he closes his mouth again. It’s the second time Brian’s ever seen his facial expression change.

“You know my name?” is all he ends up saying, voice soft like he can’t quite understand why. Which only serves to confuse Brian more, because has he _seen_ the amount of popularity he’s been gaining recently?

“Of course I do,” he scoffs, fiddling with his earring. He catches Dowoon’s eyes following the motion before flickering back to someplace just past his shoulder, like he’s only pretending to be listening but is somehow still on edge. It’s weird. He’s weird. “With how much those girls gush over you, I’d have to be deaf _and_ blind not to know.”

Well. That’s a bit of a lie, really. Brian clears his throat, suddenly feeling the awkwardness of the situation. “Is that the only reason you came up to me? Or are you going to see something and hiss at me again?” And okay, maybe he doesn’t quite have the right to say that yet – the way Dowoon recoils at being called out is proof enough – but he’s frustrated despite his own attempt at staying away from the guy, and the words spill out of him, unstoppable.

“Look,” Dowoon says, and this is probably the most Brian’s ever heard him speak, because his brain chooses this exact moment to latch onto just how deep his voice is. “I just came to thank you for trying to tell them off. We’re even now, right?” His voice is wary but his eyes are weary, like this is something he’s said over and over again. Like relationships to him are just a series of exchanged favors. For some reason, it makes Brian’s blood boil. “You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Brian blinks. Will any conversation with Dowoon not bewilder him? “What do you mean, _pretend_? You think I was doing that just because I owed you something?” The idea of it is outrageous, and honestly kind of offensive, because sure, he might be a little cold, he might not care about things like being considerate and sensitive, but he’s not a complete sociopath.

Dowoon just stares at him like _duh_ , and in the space of a single blink he’s already got his back turned, on his way back to whatever classroom he’d emerged from.

Speaking of which. “Wait,” Brian yells after him, “how did you know I’d be here?”

Dowoon stops but doesn’t turn, so Brian has to strain to hear when he says, “you’re not the only one who notices things, Kang Younghyun.”

With that, he rounds the corner and disappears, leaving echoes of his voice saying his name – _Kang Younghyun –_ bouncing around in Brian’s head.

\--

             “So let me get this straight,” Sungjin says, long, tapered fingers pulling a pack of napkins out of his bag, “this Dowoon guy – you’re suddenly fascinated by him? Just because he knows your Korean name?” He extracts a single napkin from the pack and uses it to dab away at some invisible stain on Brian’s face.

Brian snorts; he’d almost forgotten Sungjin's habit of grossly oversimplifying things. “Jae recognizes him, too,” he says, as Sungjin deems his face spotless and drops the used napkin in one of the trash cans lining the street. “Plus he’s just – weird. Not, like, particularly strange or off-putting or anything – he’s just _weird_. The way he reacts to things, the way he interprets everything I do or say…it’s like he doesn’t want to trust anyone who’s even remotely civil to him.” _Like he’s spent an entire life convincing himself that he doesn’t deserve kindness,_ is what he doesn’t add.

Sungjin shrugs. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve already treated him better than anyone else in this school. Plus, he sounds like he’s perfectly capable of making friends - he just chooses not to. So why don’t you just leave it?”

That’s… a good question. A really good question. A question Brian doesn’t know the answer to. “He’s… fascinating, I guess,” he says, and winces at how terrible that sounds. “I want to know more about him,” he amends.

Sungjin stares at him for a very, very long time, reminding Brian a little bit of a parent preparing themselves for The Talk. It’s a little stifling, and he isn’t quite sure where to look, so it comes as a relief when he nods, averting his eyes. “Just be careful.”

Brian swallows, trying not to think of cold fingers and bruised eyes. “Right.”


	2. what can i do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, neither happens, their relationship instead morphing from ‘why do you hate me???’ to ‘do you hate me???’. (It’s not much of an improvement.)

Truth be told, Brian doesn’t exercise a lot.

Sure, he doesn’t consume much either, but his only physical training comes in the form of bass practice and he’s at the point in his life where he spends a large portion of his day looking critically at his own reflection, so he’s totally justified when he spends 4 hours playing DDR, right?

Sungjin, collapsed next to the machine, doesn’t seem to think so. “This is  _ unhealthy _ ,” he insists, wiping his forehead with the flannel he’d discarded hours earlier. “You need to stop over-exerting yourself, or you’re gonna get hurt.”

Brian barely spares him a glance, eyes fixed on the flood of arrows displayed in painfully bright neon on the screen in front of him, feet barely touching the floor as he racks up combination points. “It’s okay, I always stretch later,” he lies, too distracted to even try to be convincing.

Sungjin snorts. “Yeah, right. Well,” he pushes himself to his feet, making a noise like rusty joints, “this is nice and all, but I really need to go home. Chores and all that good stuff.” He reaches out to pat him on the back, but withdraws after noticing the sheen of sweat that has begun enveloping his skin. “See you tomorrow, okay? Don’t stay too late,” he scolds, “with a face like yours, who knows what people’ll do to you.”

“Right,” Brian mumbles in response, and Sungjin leaves with a final mom-like cluck of the tongue, framed by flashing lights and tacky soundtracks. 

Left alone, chords melting into each other and minutes dripping through the air, Brian loses himself and track of time in favor of beating the current high score. He’s five points away - just one more round, and he’ll be at the top - when somehow, through the arcade and the fog of his mind, he hears a gruff voice bark, “Hey!”

And he doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He doesn’t even know  _ how _ he managed to pick up on that, considering it wasn’t even addressing  _ him _ , and he was  _ so focused _ on beating the game just moments ago, but somehow he finds himself turning towards the source of the sound, where a grease-stained, sour-looking middle-aged man is currently leaned over a machine, brows furrowed, uncomfortably close to- to-

Brian almost laughs.  _ What the fuck? _

Because of course. Of  _ course _ he recognizes that mop of raven hair, bangs falling into dark eyes. Of  _ course _ he recognizes the pale, smooth skin, the long, hard-knuckled hands, the nearly endless legs folded neatly underneath the machine. Of  _ course _ .

Of course it’s Dowoon.

Movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he blinks just as the greasy man is raising a hand, about to hit him, and suddenly he doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand why he stumbles off the machine, lower body sore from hours of DDR - doesn’t understand how he gets all the way across the arcade so fast, when it hurts so much;  _ certainly _ doesn’t understand why, when the hand comes down, he’s there to catch it, knuckles white against the man’s sweaty wrist.

The clap that echoes as he intercepts the blow is what makes Dowoon look up, and instead of apologizing, or laughing, or saying  _ anything  _ at all, he stands up and  _ leaves  _ without so much as a glance back, at the person who’d prevented the shit being beaten out of him. He stands up and  _ leaves _ , and Brian is so, so pissed right now.

(Which might have been a blessing in disguise, in hindsight, because that anger is what allows him to see the man’s other hand swinging towards him. The man ends up on the ground eventually, but that doesn’t mean Brian isn’t still pissed.)

\--

He  _ really _ hates Yoon Dowoon.

He mulls over this one thought as he stumbles up the street, feet sore, lips dry and cracked and bleeding a little from where he’d gotten punched, bruise throbbing just over his cheekbone. It’s dark, and normally this wouldn’t faze him, but he’s already tired from fighting someone who probably weighed twice as much as he did and he’s not sure how much energy he has to fight if someone tried to attack him again.

He  _ really hates _ Yoon Dowoon.

Thankfully, though, he doesn’t walk long before reaching a convenience store, where he can hopefully clean up enough to avoid his parents’ hysterical concern when he gets home. (Although that might be inevitable, judging from the amount of missed calls clogging up his lock screen.) It’s lit from the inside, washing the sidewalk blue, and he’s about to stumble through the door and buy every first-aid item on the shelf when his attention catches on a familiar long-legged figure slouched against the table next to the door.

He grits his teeth, pain forgotten, blood boiling as he marches up to the fucking  _ asshole  _ and sits down in front of him, making sure the chair scrapes against the cement hard enough for the sound to echo all the way down the deserted street. “You have a lot to answer for,” he seethes, and just the way Dowoon  _ looks _ at him, eyebrow raised slightly, sipping nonchalantly from one of those kid’s drinks, makes him want to throw something. “What the  _ hell _ was that? I got  _ beaten up for you- _ ” okay, that’s kind of a lie, he did most of the beating up “-and you just  _ leave _ ? What the fuck kind of-” he breaks off into indignant spluttering, waving his hands around the general area of his face. Dowoon just sits there, staring, emotionless as usual. Brian wants to scream.

And then his hand is coming out from underneath the table, skin ghostly pale and veins almost glowing in the blue light, and Brian watches as he tosses a box of tissues towards him and a- a hardboiled egg?

No way.  _ No fucking way _ . Is this guy for real?

Brian scoffs, picking up the egg with hopefully as much disdain as he’s feeling. (He is  _ not amused _ . He isn’t.) “If you tell me to rub it on my bruise,” he says slowly, “I  _ will _ beat you up.”

Dowoon just nods, mouth still but eyes crinkled in amusement.

_ Fucking hell _ .

Feeling all kinds of stupid and ridiculous, he slowly, reluctantly brings the egg up to his cheek, still microwave-warm against his sensitive skin as he rubs it in circles against his bruise.  _ This is so stupid _ , he thinks,  _ so so stupid, so so so so- _

And then he just doesn’t think after that for a very, very long time.

Because Dowoon is  _ smiling. _

It’s only a flicker of amusement, a poor imitation of a smile, really – but it’s the first sign that he’s capable of feeling positive emotion at all, the first genuine sign at least, and Brian’s brain takes way too long to reboot as he processes the slight uptick of his lips, the microscopic creases fanning out from the corners of his usually hollow eyes. He suddenly feels a very primal urge to take a picture, paint it, whatever – because this feels a little momentous, a little exclusive.

He laughs, unsure if it’s because he’s still rubbing a fucking egg on his fucking bruise or because his entire existence has short-circuited, and when he looks up Dowoon is chuckling a little too, shoulders shaking. If he were delusional, he’d think that this was actually a little romantic, sharing a moment between the two of them under hidden stars, harsh light casting sharp shadows against the fabric of the world, clandestine and precious.

But he’s not delusional. He  _ isn’t _ .

So when Dowoon leaves after – an eternity? A second? He’s not sure anymore – not saying anything before melting away into the night like he belongs there, he’s  _ not _ disappointed at all. He doesn’t want him to stay. He’s not perfectly fine with the idea of spending hours in comfortable silence, watching Dowoon’s face fold into emotions only he gets to see. He  _ doesn’t want him to stay _ .

_Fuck_.

He must’ve sat there for hours after Dowoon’s departure, trying not to think, trying not to feel the chill of the wind biting against exposed skin, trying not to come to terms with the emotions stirring inside him. Because, yeah, Dowoon is a little prick who doesn’t understand human kindness and facial expressions, who sees attempts at friendship as favours needing to be repaid, who manages to flip an entire life upside-down with those rare flashes of emotion. And yeah, if Brian were in his right mind, he would stay angry at him, because _what the hell_?

But instead, hours later in the back of the yellow Porsche and ignoring a frantic Charles’ yammering, all he can take away from the moment spent with Dowoon closed off from the rest of the world is that he  _ really wants it to happen again. _

He is so, so fucked.

\--

In an ideal world, Brian would go back to passive-aggressively acknowledging Dowoon’s existence, and Dowoon would keep treating him like he regularly commits mass executions in his free time. In an ideal world, they’d both silently agree to forget about that night, and carry on as if nothing had really happened. 

Unfortunately, neither happens, their relationship instead morphing from ‘why do you hate me???’ to ‘ _ do _ you hate me???’. (It’s not much of an improvement.) Brian, much to his chagrin, has started looking for Dowoon in crowds (which is really fucking hard considering he has the most generic haircut ever), listening for that voice, watching for that rare smile. He tries to wave in the hallways, but usually has to play it off as a neck scratch when Dowoon just kind of stares at him, unimpressed. (He’s learned that that’s basically his default setting.)

He’s not the only one noticing Dowoon, though - his fan club has grown even bigger and even more rabid, chasing him down halls and following him pretty much every place it’s socially acceptable for them to go. Infuriatingly enough, he doesn’t seem to mind the giggling masses disrupting his entire existence as much as he minds Brian, who only wants to become friends with him in the most unobtrusive way possible. It’s like the guy is deliberately trying to throw him off, or something - and it’s working

Or at least it  _ was _ working until, after days of trying and failing to get closer to Dowoon, patience frayed like crumbling rope, he’s walking down the halls alone, enjoying his reputation as, concisely, ‘don’t fucking touch me or your ancestors will feel the repercussions’ when he hears the now-familiar sound of incoming fangirls. (Or, if we’re going into details here, imagine cicadas but hormonal.) He ducks into an empty classroom to avoid the tide, and is about to shut the door when Yoon Best-Timing-Ever Dowoon walks past, pace just a little faster than his usual unaffected gait. 

It should mean nothing - it  _ is _ nothing - but Brian must have a death wish, or maybe he’s masochistic in weirdly socio-emotional ways, because it means enough to him to convince him that reaching out, grabbing Dowoon’s hand, and dragging him into the classroom with him is a good idea.

He really needs to stop doing these kinds of things.

He lets go so suddenly that Dowoon stumbles out of his line of sight out of sheer momentum alone, giving him time to lock the door and talk himself out of flipping off a few of the more angered groupies. When he looks back, Dowoon’s eyes are wide and wary, shoulders angled away and tense underneath his uniform like he expects to be beaten up or something. It’s a little annoying, to be honest.

“Calm down, will you?” he mutters, tossing his lunch onto the nearest desk and flopping down onto the adjacent chair, carefully maintaining an air of nonchalance despite having a mini internal crisis. ( _ Why did I do that?  _ He asks himself hysterically, but receives no response. Typical.) “I’m not going to assault you or anything. You just looked like you needed a break.”

Dowoon blinks, shifting his weight so he’s not in such a defensive stance. “I didn't need your help,” he says slowly, which, really?

Brian rolls his eyes.  _ This guy _ . “Who I says I was helping  _ you _ ?” Across from him, Dowoon winces. “You look a lot better smiling than you do with your resting bitch face, so really, I’m doing this for my sake, considering I’m the one who has to look at you. You don’t owe me, and I don’t owe you, okay? Welcome to friendship.”

He turns his back on the freshman, mouth still agape, so he can have an adequate amount of time to freak out because  _ oh my god I just said we were friends what the fuck kind of romcom is this bullshit _ before distracting himself with food so he won’t have to make conversation with possibly the most socially awkward carbon-based organism on Earth. 

Surprisingly enough, though, it’s Dowoon who talks first, after about five minutes of silence, waiting for the noise outside the door to die down and the crowd to dissipate. “Where are your friends, anyway? Jae and the-” something in his voice gives out then, and he has to clear his throat and try again “-Jae and the others.”

Brian catches onto the little blemish in his sentence, but he knows well enough not to pry. “Jae’s at badminton, and Sungjin is studying because he’s boring and responsible. So you’re stuck with me now.” He grins his toothy grin, the one his mom had banned him from doing ‘in case my associates try to make you their new toy’. (It doesn’t work.)

“Oh my,” Dowoon gurns sarcastically, which causes Brian’s internal system to short-circuit again because  _ he has a sense of humor??? _ “What did I do in my past life to deserve such a blessing? Hanging out with  _ Kang Younghyun _ for an hour in a dark classroom? Talk about the highlight of my life.”

Brian’s smile freezes on his face. “Hey,” he says, voice coming out low, “what is it with you and using my Korean name? You know everyone just calls me Brian.”

Dowoon shrugs, scooting his chair a little closer to Brian’s - which he counts as a victory, by the way. “You’re older than me, and we’re not exactly friends, so.” He shrugs again. “Manners, I guess?”

Brian rolls his eyes, kicking out to prod Dowoon in the shin with his foot. “What did I just say? We’re friends now, okay? You locked me in a washroom for an hour, ignored me for a week, got me beaten up, and then ignored me for  _ another _ week - we’ve pretty much gotten all the qualifications, haven’t we?”

A small smile tugs at the corners of Dowoon’s lips, and Brian rejoices silently (because that was his goal all along, he insists to himself, not because he likes seeing Dowoon smiling or whatever). “If this is your way of forcing me to apologize, I’m sorry. I owe you one.”

Brian tosses a grape at him. “You don’t owe me anything, okay? Relationships aren’t just a series of favors. I did everything I did because, for some weird reason, I care about you as a person, alright? Chill it with the angst thing.”

When he focuses back on his face, Dowoon’s eyes are unreadable, hand still poised where he’d caught the grape projectile in mid-air. “Wow,” he says slowly, and Brian feels shame at how he hangs onto every word, “you must really like suffering.”

There’s something sad and dark in that single self-deprecating joke, but Brian’s already considered this entire conversation a fluke as it is, so he doesn’t push his luck and instead throws another grape. Dowoon doesn’t react fast enough, this time - it hits him square on the forehead, making him go cross-eyed as he tries to track the movement. Brian snorts a little.

Which was a mistake, in hindsight, because he’s too busy laughing to see the way Dowoon’s eyes narrow a bit, and only realizes what he did wrong when there’s a grape whizzing towards him, landing with a  _ splat _ on his arm and what the  _ fuck _ how  _ strong _ is this guy?

“Wait, wait!” He throws his arms up in the air, still laughing a little as Dowoon reaches over to his lunch to grab some more projectiles. “You win, you win, okay? I don’t want to be covered in grape juice by the end of lunch.”

Dowoon eyes him for a little bit before allowing himself to smile ( _ what????? _ Brian’s mind goes. Dowoon needs to stop smiling. It’s not good for his health). “I didn’t think you’d give up that easily,” he says, a little amused, and Brian would be offended if he weren’t so hung up on the fact that Dowoon actually seems happy for once. (It feels a bit like a victory.)

“I’m not  _ giving up _ ,” he insists, and uses Dowoon’s resulting snort of derision as an excuse to scootch his chair closer so he can whack him in the arm. “I need to do my math homework earlier on in the day, while I still have energy to throw myself off a cliff.” He pulls the textbook out of his bag, lying sadly at his feet, and a crumpled piece of paper. He eyes Dowoon, who also seems to be watching him back. It’s a weird feeling, and Brian tries not to dwell on it too long. “Not like you would know, Mr. Math Genius.”

Dowoon gives a one-shouldered shrug, the edges of his smile twitching like he wants to smile wider but won’t let himself. “Not really. You know what they say about drummers - they can only count to four.”

Brian has a heart attack and a stroke at the same time.

Or at least that’s what it feels like as he keels over, pressing a palm to his sternum and wheezing. Dowoon stares at him, unimpressed and unaffected, as usual. “Well,” he manages to choke out, “that explains how you managed to throw a grape so hard it exploded on impact.” He silently pats himself on the back for being able to even form cohesive sentences because  _ wow _ , it shouldn’t feel like the universe has just been upended just because of this one detail but it kind of does and Brian has now managed to confuse himself with his own feelings.

Dowoon is a  _ drummer?  _ One of those head-banging, broody, silent drummers with the deep voices and the fanfictions where they’re always messed up because of some deep dark childhood? A  _ drummer _ ? Brian hates to say this, but he thinks he’s just gotten ten times hotter. Not that he thinks he’s hot, or anything - no, no way, he hates the guy, he isn’t  _ attracted _ to him, no, what? Who is Dowoon? Who is he? What is life?

“Sorry,” he wheezes, finally managing to pull himself upright despite oxygen deficiency and a very large internal crisis, “it’s just that - I’m a bassist, and it’s nice to meet others who play an instrument, and rock’n’roll and all that stuff. Yeah. I’m a bassist.” God, he is such an embarrassing human being. He’s glad his parents aren’t here to see their son fail at life. “Anyways, math. Is a thing. That I have to do, so. Don’t talk to me. I need to do. Math. Yeah. I’m a bassist,” he repeats, and he is so glad he made the decision to admire his shoes while talking, because he  _ really _ doesn’t want to know what kind of expression Dowoon is making right now.

Dowoon, though, is apparently a better person that he’d thought (shocking), because instead of laughing at him like any sane person would, he drags his chair next to Brian’s and says, “I can tutor you, if you’d like.”

Brian chokes again, and if this is becoming a regular thing he’s not so sure he wants to be Dowoon’s friend anymore. But he  _ does _ need the help, so with much reluctance and regret he says, “That would be nice, thanks.”

He’s still refusing to look at Dowoon, so his voice alone is eerily calm when he leans in close and says, “what questions look hard to you?”

_ Fuck. Why and how is his voice so deep? What is he trying to play at? _

“All of them,” he half-jokes, because he’s not lying when he says he’s failing math. Dowoon exhales loudly - is that a  _ laugh _ ? Brian is  _ not okay _ \- and takes the pencil and sheet of paper from Brian’s hands - and he’s  _ not _ focusing on how nice his hands are, because they’re  _ not _ \- before scribbling down an equation. 

“Look,” he says, voice suddenly quiet, not in that infuriatingly passive way Brian’s associated so closely to his existence but quiet like he’s focusing, like he legitimately cares about making Brian understand everything he’s doing and it’s  _ weird _ . It’s  _ weird _ but it’s somehow not uncomfortable, which only suffices to make everything weirder and Brian is so, so confused. “You just have to substitute values for everything you don’t know and it’s a lot easier-”

Brian blinks, and suddenly the bell has rung, because that’s exactly how fast the time has passed, and people are starting to pour into the classroom, giving weird looks to the two people sitting in the middle, heads joined over a textbook, one with a pulverized grape dripping down his arm. He blinks, and suddenly questions that he’d spent hours screaming over before make sense to him now, and he’s grown accustomed to Dowoon’s low murmur being the only thing he can hear, accustomed to the way his writing slopes as his hand drags across the page.

Maybe flying time and slowed departure is a trend that comes with being with Dowoon alone, because when they’re chased out of the room by the teacher, five minutes late to third period, he doesn’t really want to leave. He suddenly regrets not having more classes with this genius freshman, who talks slow and has the most patience in the world, who writes equations like they’re stories and  _ is a drummer. _ He says goodbye to Dowoon and watches him walk down the hall and disappear down the corner, heard thudding heavy in his ribcage, and just like last time, wants nothing but  _ more _ .

If  _ this _ is how all of their meetings are going to go, he doesn’t think he’ll survive the year.

\--

“Pop quiz!”

Brian wants to die.

He’s just started feeling good about math after yesterday, but of  _ course _ the class had to go and continue being the shittiest class ever and drag his budding friendship with the subject to the depths of Tartarus. He slumps against his chair, kicking at Jae’s back, who turns and shoots him a sympathetic smile. (Not that he has any right to - he’s one of the first in the class, the asshole.) He glances at the clock, and wonders if five minutes into the day would be an appropriate time to fake extreme fatigue and ask for a pass to the nurse’s office.

It’s then, while he’s debating the pros and cons of lobotomy via semi-sharpened pencil, that his gaze catches on a pair of dark eyes, fixed on him. 

As he watches, Dowoon gives him that little flicker of a smile, reminding him a bit of a wavering candle flame or tea lights on a harbor, before making a little ‘fighting!’ gesture with his fist. It’s kind of cute, if Brian were significantly more masochistic and deluded.

And, if he  _ were _ deluded (not saying he is), he’d think that maybe he feels a little bit better about the quiz, like Dowoon has saved him, maybe.

(But he  _ isn’t _ . That’s the point here.)

\--

At lunch, Brian ventures into previously uncharted territories.

Jae’s at badminton again, and Sungjin’s headed to the library again, which means either Brian finds someone to sit with or someone will, God forbid, try to sit with him.

And, well. If he puts it like that, there’s only one choice, really.

“For question three, did you get x equals negative five or am I going to have to throw myself out the window?”

Dowoon looks up as Brian drops his tray onto the table with a clatter, glaring at a freshman who’d just tossed a crumpled-up napkin in his direction. Dowoon watches the exchange without much comment (Brian has been watching so intently for his smiles that he’s forgotten what he’s like 99.9999% of the time), only opening his mouth to speak when the significantly more terrified freshman has left and it’s only the two of them. “It’s not good to look at people like that, you know.”

Brian scoffs, flicking Dowoon gently on the temple. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Incapable of Feeling Emotions Other Than Unimpressed. Seriously, I’m surprised I didn’t leave when I had the chance. Now did you get negative five or not?”

Dowoon stops scribbling, pen bleeding slowly into the paper. “I did, yeah,” he says slowly, pauses like he wants to say something more, and Brian leans closer, anticipating. Finally, with a voice that would have broken Brian’s heart if he’d let it, Dowoon says quietly, “you should’ve left.”

Brian laughs. Yes, yes, he’s terrible and insensitive and ruins everything, but he can’t help it because that’s possibly the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard, despite having said the same thing just seconds ago. “What are you-”

His voice lodges in his throat, then. Because Dowoon refuses to look him in the eye, and what he can see underneath black hair is pure, silent agony. It’s like the almost happy Dowoon from just hours ago has been shredded and usurped, replaced by a Dowoon who  _ still _ doesn’t trust Brian, who  _ still _ doesn’t believe he deserves to have anything like real friendship.

_ No, _ he thinks,  _ maybe he’s been pretending all along _ .

And that’s what  _ really  _ gets him, what he really thinks about as Dowoon says, a little more forcefully, “you should  _ leave _ ,” standing up and gathering all his stuff without bothering to organize or care for the structural integrity of his things. “Now. While you still have the chance, right?”

“Dowoon,” Brian hears himself saying, because his mind is just a broken cassette player repeating  _ he was pretending all along  _ over and over again and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing physically, “Dowoon, don’t do this-”

_ “No _ ,” and is that a voice crack? “ _ You  _ shouldn’t do  _ this _ .” He’s walking away, now, and Brian hates how he can’t move, not even when he stops a few feet away and turns back. Brian wishes he could explain what was going on in his eyes, but there are no words to describe that much pain. “Bye, Younghyun,” he mutters, the robotic voice back up like a wall around the human parts of him.

And so he watches Dowoon walk away, voice replaying in his head.

_ Bye, Younghyun. _


	3. lean on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know," Brian says, "for someone who keeps insisting that I leave, you seem like you really want me to stay.”

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Brian mutters, slamming his hands down so hard against his desk the floor underneath him almost rattles a bit. Jae looks up blearily from where his head had been buried in his folded arms, sunlight whitewashing his bleached hair. 

“What’s up?” he mumbles sleepily, adjusting his glasses with one long finger before pushing himself upright in his chair. His hair is misshapen and there’s an indent on his cheek from his uniform sleeve, and normally Brian would be taking pictures until his phone runs out of storage, but he’s too busy thinking about  _ not _ thinking about Yoon Dowoon.

The name makes him instinctively glance over to the seat under the clock, where the most difficult and confusing human being in existence is currently seated, earbuds in and head pillowed on his arms. He grits his teeth, and uses all his self-control not to stalk over there and give him an earful.

“I keep  _ trying _ ,” he tells Jae, quietly to avoid being overheard, running a hand through his hair. “I keep  _ trying _ to get close to him but every time I think there’s progress he shuts me out  _ again _ , and I  _ know _ I should stop, I  _ know  _ there’s no point but- but, God, I just want to see him  _ happy _ . I don’t care what it takes, I can’t stand that look in his eyes anymore. Am I crazy?” he turns to Jae, who looks at him with an unreadable expression. “Please tell me I’m crazy.”

Jae pauses to think, eyes sad with secrets but clear as a perfect spring morning, like he’s befriended his ghosts but not the real people.  “I think,” he says, “you’re doing the right thing. I don’t know, Brian – I kept track of him for a little bit after I graduated, and from what I’ve heard, it took a year for one guy to make him laugh. Meanwhile,  _ you _ – well.” He gives Brian a meaningful look, but Brian isn’t really processing anything -  _ can’t  _ process anything, because  _ what _ .

No way. From the way he acts, Dowoon probably thinks he’s annoying -  _ hates _ him, even.  After all, the guy went out of his way to spite him, specifically treating him differently from others and - oh.

_ Oh. _

It all makes sense now. All the sarcasm, the unimpressed looks, the frantic confusion when he’d hinted at leaving - it wasn’t because Dowoon didn’t like him. It wasn’t because Dowoon was trying to push him away.

It was because Dowoon  _ wanted _ to let him in, but just didn’t know how.

Brian feels like an idiot.

“Oh my god,” he whispers, still in a bit of shock from his epiphany, sitting down hard in his seat. Next to him, Jae nods, smiling a little bit. “Oh my god.” He pushes himself to his feet again only to sit back down. “Oh my god,” he repeats.

Jae laughs, although it’s a little dry. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t do it. Dowoon-” his voice catches, and he clears his throat before continuing - seriously, what is it with these two and each other’s names? “- gets put off by really big gestures. And  _ you _ ,” he points an accusatory finger at Brian’s chest, “can’t do subtlety for  _ shit _ . So just, like. Let it be, okay? Baby steps, Brian. Baby steps.”

“Oh my god,” Brian says, for the fourth time. Jae looks like he can’t decide whether to slap him or record him for posterity. “Did you know he calls me Younghyun?”

Jae raises an eyebrow. “And you thought he  _ hated you _ ?”

“Oh my god,” he repeats, and Jae throws a pencil at him.

\--

This is probably the cheesiest thing he’s ever done.

Cheesier than making 20 hand-made, personalized Valentine’s cards for each of his classmates in the second grade. Cheesier than- than… 

Actually, now that he thinks about it, there wasn’t really much competition to begin with.

His parents seem to think differently, though, if the smiles being exchanged at their end of the table are any indication. His dad has changed out of painting overalls and into a clean flannel and dark jeans (“once you go hipster, you can never really leave,” he’d proclaimed one day, many years ago), and his mom has left her steely professionalism at the door in favor of a big sweater and leggings. Like this, hands smeared dark with permanent marker and cradling boiled eggs, they look like the perfect family - and they are, Brian supposes, smiling despite himself. 

But he’s a shitty teenager and he has to play the role convincingly, so he rolls his eyes and says, “can you not look at each other like you’re already naming your grandchildren?”

“We’re just surprised, honey,” his mom smiles at him, although her eyes are still having a silent conversation with his dad (something along the lines of ‘oh my god he said grandchildren’, probably). “You don’t usually do things like this.”

Brian grimaces, rubbing at a smudge. “Yeah, because the last time I tried to be remotely nice to someone, they texted me a literal shopping list for their birthday. Remember?”

“Ah, yes,” his dad says grimly. Next to him, his mom purses her lips in thinly veiled distaste. “The Porsche girl.”

Brian inclines his head, smiling a bit at his victory. “Exactly. Listen,” he starts, because they’re going to pry at some point, most likely at incredibly inconvenient times, and better now than right before he’s about to step in the shower, “this guy, he’s- he’s different, okay? He’ll get scared if I go up to him upfront, so I have to lure him in with, like, sugar cubes or something.”

“Brian, I’m pretty sure having a relationship with a horse is illegal,” his dad says, and Brian chokes on his own spit. 

\--

The next day, Brian watches Dowoon trudge into the classroom, fingers tapping impatiently on his desk. He’d gotten to class ten minutes early just for this, and by now he’s exhausted all forms of distraction, including checking his phone, pen-spinning, and trying to telepathically connect with the seagulls outside the window. Next to him, Jae’s already teased him into exhaustion and is now slumped against his desk, the occasional giggle and ‘oh my god I can’t believe you’re leaving him  _ boiled eggs _ ’ still emanating from between his folded arms.

Jae is the least of his concerns, though, because Dowoon has just approached his desk, and he  _ knows _ he’s seen it from the way his movements stutter to a stop. Slowly, hesitantly, as if expecting it to be rigged, Dowoon picks up the egg - examines it, turns it over, and reads the message. As Brian watches, his head lifts, eyes sweeping across the class like a man on a mission - and then their eyes meet.

And then their eyes meet, and something erupts in Brian’s stomach. 

Multiple thoughts flash through Brian’s mind, all at breakneck speed -  _ is it constipation? Explosive diarrhea? God, did Charles prank me again because I swear to god _ \- and all so loud and distracting that he almost misses how Dowoon’s mouth is hanging open, eyes wide and afraid. 

Afraid.

Despite wanting with every fiber of his being to just die in a hole, he sends him a shaky, reassuring smile, watches the confusion grow, and buries his head in his hands and regrets everything. Because, amongst that torrent of thoughts, there’s one scenario he doesn’t quite want to come to terms with just yet. One scenario that’s so outlandish, so  _ out there _ , that he doesn’t even want to consider it-

(But maybe it isn’t so outlandish at all.)

Brian makes a sound of despair, and spends the rest of the class wanting to die.

\--

The next day, Dowoon isn’t there, and Brian kind of wants to cry.

(But, you know. In a cool way.)

The same way he finds himself watching the door throughout the period, when all chances of Dowoon simply being late whittle down to nothing; the same way he catches himself looking at the seat under the clock, and not so much the clock itself. The same way he berates himself for not having any way to contact Dowoon whatsoever (not that it’d do much good; Brian senses Dowoon is a leave-on-read kind of person). It’s in a cool way. In a subtle way. It’s totally not, like, taking over his life or anything.

(And if he spends all of lunch staring at the table right next to the trash can, littered with scraps of junk, well, that’s besides the point.)

\--

The day after that, Brian finds a note stuck to his desk.

He checks the clock - there’s twenty minutes until class starts, way before any of the buses arrive. He glances at the open doorway - there’s no one in the building, and the only sound is the distant whir of the cleaning machines polishing the halls. He looks back down at the note, written on bright blue paper, something scribbled on the top right corner, like a really weird signature.

Or- he squints, a bit. It’s a drawing, actually. An oval with a smiley face on it, and a strangely familiar smiley face at that.

“Oh my god,” he says out loud. “It’s an egg. It’s an  _ egg _ .”

(His heart does  _ not _ do weird things in his ribcage. It doesn’t.)

Slowly, throat clogged - he must be sick - he reads the scribbled message.

_ Next time, boil your eggs a bit longer. Ever heard of food poisoning? _

He winces, regret and inexplicable happiness driving his system into an emotionally conflicted mess; takes the note, pulls a pen out of his pocket, and writes a response on the back.

_ Sorry _ , he writes,  _ but hey, you’re talking to me again, so who’s the real winner here? _

This is so stupid. This is so, so stupid. This is so, so,  _ so _ stupid, he tells himself as he makes his way through the rows of desks to the one across the room, tucking the piece of paper into the crack between the top of the desk and the leg before he can bash his head against the chalkboard out of the pure cheesiness of the thing. Because, really, when did he become the kind of guy who slides notes and draws smiley faces on hardboiled eggs? What the hell?

(He doesn’t actually mind that much, though. Not when he sees Dowoon’s smile later, clutching the square of blue paper in his hand.)

\--

Soon enough, it becomes a ritual for them, Dowoon reaching school at unholy hours and leaving notes for Brian to scribble on the back of and return. Sometimes it’s a joke, sometimes a sarcastic quip, and sometimes just a game of tic-tac-toe, but it’s always there, and Brian has learned to look forward to seeing that familiar blue square on his desk every morning, even if he doesn’t actually see Dowoon himself. It gets him through the class, sometimes, sometimes the entire day, that little scribbled message in increasingly familiar handwriting.

Somewhere down the line, as exams approach and Dowoon’s exhaustion is showing through the notes’ gradual decrease in length, he starts getting a little more creative - sometimes drawing instead of writing, sometimes making little origami frogs and flowers just to watch Dowoon smile and smooth out the creases. He’d folded a heart, once, and had for the entire following week after Dowoon had turned completely red, tips of his ears flaming scarlet against the cold crystal of his earring. At some point, he finds himself making some time in his schedule just to pore through origami tutorial sites, spending hours learning how to make cranes and roses and 3D stars because he  _ wants to see Dowoon smile. _

And this - the dedication, the spots swimming in front of his eyes after a particularly long session in front of the computer surrounded by crumpled-up balls of paper - might be a little over-the-top, might toe or even cross the line between friendship and something more, but he doesn’t really want to know what that something more is. He doesn’t mind just being  _ there _ , walking that tightrope, afraid to lose his balance because a single shift could mean the difference between flying or falling.

(When it comes to Dowoon, he’d much rather spend his entire life suspended than hurtling clean through the air.)

\--

Okay, maybe what he’s doing isn’t so extra after all, because  _ what the actual fuck? _

__ Maybe the clock is lying. Maybe  _ he’s  _ lying. Maybe he’s dreaming? Is he dreaming? How is he here, half an hour before school starts with half the lights in the building turned off, and still managing to miss Dowoon? What the fuck?

No. No, this is ridiculous. Sure, he can literally feel his eyesight getting worse the longer he spends on the computer squinting at tiny numbers and thin lines, but Dowoon can’t be getting more than four hours of sleep in order to pull this kind of shit off, and he is nowhere near worth sacrificing his already fragile health for. Does he take the public bus? Isn’t it cold as  _ fuck _ ? How early does-  _ god _ , there’s like, what, two buses between midnight and seven AM? How early does he have to be out there waiting?

An image comes to Brian’s mind - Dowoon, shoulders hunched against the morning cold, blending into the night as he waits, alone, in a bus shelter that barely protects from the gradual onslaught of winter weather. 

Dear god.

“That’s it,” he says firmly, planting a palm down on Dowoon’s desk right next to the little basket he’d made out of the day’s note, “I’m not letting you do this anymore.”

\--

Easier said than done.

His parents and chauffeur are fine with it for the first week or so, as he asks to leave earlier and earlier and sleeps later and later. (Seriously, though - maybe ruining his sleep schedule in junior year isn’t such a good idea.) But by the time winter is peering around the corner, exams are rolling in like a giant pitch-black tsunami and he’s used to watching the sun rise from within his first period classroom windows, it’s clear they’re all done with his shit.

(Even the janitors. Sure, they’d exchanged comfortable seats for the keys to the front door, but they’re still done.)

Eventually, it gets to the point where he’s not sure what part of his bloodstream is actual blood and hasn’t been taken over by caffeine, his teachers are letting him go to the nurse’s office because he constantly looks like he’s about to pass out, and the teasing Jae bombards him with during lunch is becoming unbearable. (Sungjin doesn’t even scold him, either - he just kind of nods along, like a disappointed dad.) And yet, still no sign of Dowoon. It’s like he’s  _ trying _ not to be caught.

Unless-

Unless he is?

After all, Brian is only arriving earlier in ten-minute increments, and Dowoon must’ve picked up on that by now, so what if- what if he-?

“No  _ way _ , Younghyun.”

“Please,” he begs, trying to read his parents’ faces for any sign of giving in. “Just this once and then I’ll go back to getting eight hours of sleep, I promise-”

“That’s what you said last time. Remember? When you went to school an hour earlier than usual? Charles looked like a zombie for the rest of the day. I’m not doing that to him again, no matter how much you want to see this lover boy of yours.”

Brian feels his face grow hot at the term ‘lover boy’, but there are more pressing issues at hand than his parents thinking he’s dating Dowoon. (Which - gross, by the way, because he’s not attracted to Dowoon whatsoever, right?) “You won’t have to,” he says. “I’ll pack my own lunch, my own breakfast, I’ll sleep - look, I’ll get a decent amount of sleep, okay? And I’m on good terms with the janitors, so they won’t kick me out or anything. Plus the school is completely locked during the nighttime, so people can’t come in while I’m sleeping. Please, just- please, just let me do this,” he pleads.

His parents share a silent conversation for what seems like eternity, Brian feeling his fate dangle in between each crook of the eyebrow, each shift of the shoulder, until his mom sighs and opens her mouth. “Fine,” she says slowly, and Brian resists the urge to fistpump. “But- you can’t ask Charles to drive you anywhere for a month, okay? Give the poor guy a break. I think he’s sick of seeing you.”

“Deal,” he breathes, victory flooding his system and threatening to make him grin. “Thank you, thank you so much-”

“Don’t thank us,” his dad interrupts, holding a hand up. “Thank Charles for dealing with your shit for so long. And, Younghyun?”

“Yeah?”

“This Dowoon guy better be worth it,” he says.

Brian lets himself smile, finally. “He is.”

\--

It happens.

He talks to his math teacher, talks to the janitors, talks to the principal - who is good friends with his parents, which is  _ terrible _ in every way imaginable - and manages to hide in the less frequented areas of the school until everyone has left, making it back to his now-familiar first period classroom with a sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t even bother checking his phone, or studying for exams - the prospect of a full night’s sleep is as enticing as a desert oasis, and he’s pretty much out the moment he closes his eyes.

He wakes up the next morning with a crease on his cheek from the sleeping bag and an incredible pain in his back, and manages to drag himself off the floor with lots of distressed noises and death wishes. His throat is sore and his mouth is dry, but he doesn’t care, because the sky outside is a milky navy blue and  _ there is someone approaching the classroom. _

The sound of footsteps getting closer to the open door sends him into a panic, and he goes through a weird, convoluted version of his usual morning routine - chugging water, pouring some on his face, and straightening his clothes all in one go. (It’s gross and all, but he’ll go back home later.) He’s freaking out about his morning breath - for someone who thrives off intimidating others, Jae had said once, he’s weirdly meticulous when it comes to his appearance - when someone walks in the door, sees him, and freezes.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

“What are you doing here?” Dowoon asks, and Brian didn’t see it during class but he sees it now, the tired slump of his shoulders, the shadows underneath his eyes that seem to encompass his entire face. It makes something stir in his gut - something warm, maybe, something new and a little scary. Suddenly, inexplicably, he wants to close that small distance between them, the bridge Dowoon is too broken to cross, wants to maybe take Dowoon’s face in his hands and tell him that he deserves better than to be barely alive. But he doesn’t know  _ how _ , doesn’t trust himself with the words that feel like they could break the boy standing across the room from him, the boy he hasn’t spoken to in weeks except in small blue squares of paper.

But he has to try, because Dowoon looks small and vulnerable and so, so scared, so he takes a deep breath and says, “I came to make sure you were okay.”

Dowoon looks down at his feet, toes dragging across the floor. “But why?”

“The same reason you come here hours before school starts to leave me those notes,” he says, and it’s a little easier to move now, so he takes a step forward carefully like he’s dealing with fine china. “You know, for someone who keeps insisting that I leave, you seem like you really want me to stay.”

Dowoon doesn’t answer that for a long, long time, so Brian takes the chance he’s given and actually does close the space between them this time, stopping just a foot short of Dowoon’s personal space and waiting. His hand goes up to Dowoon’s wrist, resting two fingers feather-light at the joint. Dowoon startles but relaxes into the touch eventually, the tension in his fingers the only sign of any discomfort. But he doesn’t run, he doesn’t leave for once, and that’s all Brian needs, really.

That’s all Brian needs, so he almost misses it when Dowoon, mumbled quieter than the sun rising from the horizon, says, “maybe I do.”

And. What?

What?

_ What??? _

__ Brian wants to combust. And scream. Maybe not in that order.

“But I don’t want to do that to you,” Dowoon continues, startling him back into the  _ very real reality that is him holding Dowoon’s wrist and also listening to him confess that he actually cares. _ “I don’t understand what it- what it’s like, this,” he moves like he wants to wave his hands around, but decides otherwise, “this  _ friendship _ thing. People usually just. They usually just use me, because I don’t know better. That’s why I was so scared before. That’s why I ran. I don’t know why you keep trying, because it’s- I’m a terrible person to be around, Younghyun.”

_ Fuck. _ Brian doesn’t think he’s emotionally stable enough for this. He’s not prepared to handle Dowoon, standing there, finally willing to cross that bridge, red sunlight slanting in through the windows and lighting his eyes on fire, spilling out his previously closed-off heart to the first person he’s decided to trust in a long, long time. Calling him by his Korean name, telling him about all the things that plague his mind, apologizing, almost - it feels like the eighth wonder of the world, really, is being bestowed on him, and he’s not sure if he’s worthy enough of it. 

But then he processes the last sentence -  _ I’m a terrible person to be around _ \- and the anger that rises in him drowns everything else out.

“Listen,” he says, low because he might actually start snarling if he speaks any louder, “I don’t know what Jae did to you back then, I honestly kind of want to punch him for it right now, but that doesn’t make you a shitty person, okay? I did all of that - all of  _ this _ \- because you’re worth it. Because you-”  _ oh god, here goes _ “-because you deserve more than to barely live, and if that means I have to jump through fucking flaming hoops or something just to see light in your eyes, then  _ I fucking will _ . No arguments. Okay?  _ Yoon Dowoon. _ ” Dowoon looks up, then, mouth slightly open in shock, something stirring behind his eyes. “You are not a bad person,” he says, slowly, “so don’t  _ ever _ say that again. Okay?”

“I-” Brian feels the hand underneath his fingertips relax, then, Dowoon’s fingers slowly curving to fit into his, and this must be the crappiest K-drama ever because  _ are they holding hands _ ? “Okay,” he relents, finally, although there’s still something in the hitch of his voice that tells Brian that maybe it’s still a little ways away from being okay. “Okay.”

Brian nods. “Good. Now can we, like, sit down somewhere? Because this is great and all, but I’m not really keen on standing for the next hour.”

And destiny must be serving one miracle after the other, because Dowoon  _ smiles _ , then, sending Brian’s thoughts into incoherence, and pulls out the chair nearest to him. “And I thought  _ I  _ got uncomfortable around emotions,” he teases quietly, and the incoherence in Brian’s mind rises in volume and insanity until he’s just screaming internally.

Thankfully, the gods decide to take it easy on him for a bit because he somehow is conscious enough to make a face. “Suddenly self aware now, are we?” 

Dowoon just grins up at him from where he’s already seated, and suddenly the space where his hand used to be feels incredibly cold. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Brian just scoffs, then, pulling out a chair and taking a seat next to him, just close enough that he has mini heart attacks whenever Dowoon so much as shifts. He lets his hand hang loose next to him, as an invitation, really. Dowoon notices – he knows he does – but doesn’t do anything for a few minutes, which Brian has learned is something he usually does before initiating anything even remotely close to physical intimacy. He has the patience to wait, though, and eventually another hand knocks against his own, doing the same not-hand-holding thing they’d done before, knuckles pressed together. Brian tries not to smile and busies himself with scrolling through his Instagram feed instead, but it only lasts a couple of seconds before he realizes that Dowoon is, very inconspicuously, trying to look over his shoulder.

He laughs a little, dragging the expression on Dowoon’s face into that of a deer in the headlights, but before he can pull away and ruin everything he’d worked so hard for he shifts a bit so he can balance his phone on his knee in a position where they can both see.

“Why are you still so scared of me?” he asks, as Dowoon puffs out a laugh through his nose.

Dowoon shrugs, eyes still fixed on his phone. “I’m not,” he says. “I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but I can guarantee you that half of it is just projecting.”

Brian blinks, because he’s gotten so used to angsty MySpace 2007 Dowoon that he’d forgotten how the guy can bite out snark like a whip. “Look,” he threatens, “do you want my memes or not?”

Dowoon falls silent. Brian cheers in his head.

It’s quiet, after that, although no shortage of milestones are passed in that short hour before class starts, the sun spilling slowly into the classroom and haloing the both of them in liquid gold. As the minutes tick by, softly yet lightning-fast, they move closer together until their heads are nearly touching, shoulders and knees bumping against each other with every minor movement. And Brian had expected at least  _ one _ of them to freak out every time it happened – his money had been on Dowoon – but strangely, neither of them does and by the time the hallways begin filling with people and Brian’s phone battery is draining at an alarming rate it feels natural, almost. Like he could see himself doing this every day.

But then people start walking into the classroom, and Brian remembers that  _ his sleeping bag is still there _ and also  _ he hasn’t showered or brushed his teeth yet _ and forces himself to stand up. (The way Dowoon looks up at him, surprise unmasked in his eyes, almost convinces him to sit back down.) “I have to go,” he says, ignoring the cold in the side that had been pressed against Dowoon, the way his entire center of gravity feels a little off. “My teeth feel kinda fuzzy and I haven’t showered or eaten or-”

Dowoon just nods, interrupting him with a wave. “Go,” he says quietly. “You smell like ass.”

Brian chokes, and hears Dowoon laughing long after it’s gone.

\--

They don’t talk for the entire day after that, after Brian comes back from his house showered and not smelling ‘like ass’ (thanks, Dowoon), which is fine. It’s fine, really, because they barely acknowledged each other before the whole- the whole egg thing and it’s fine, it’s not like they just spent an hour alone not-really touching and not-really holding hands. It’s fine. He’s fine.

“Jesus Christ, Brian, you’re  _ not _ fine, go home,” Sungjin says, looking at him like a worried dad. “You’ve been distracted the entire day, and you look like shit. You need to take care of yourself, okay? Exams are coming up and-”

“I’m fine,” Brian mumbles into his folded arms, trying not to fall asleep with each prolonged blink. Why does Jae have to have friends  _ other _ than him? Why is he alone with Sungjin in one of his nagging moods? Why does this happen to him? “Just a little tired, is all.”

Sungjin snorts, titters a little under his breath (Brian can imagine him wagging his finger like an old cleaning lady) but leaves him alone after that, sensing that his words are going unheard. “Fine. But don’t come to me once your GPA starts dying.”

“I already  _ have _ a mom, you know,” Brian reminds him. “A mom you’re weirdly good friends with.”

“Youngji is a  _ very nice person _ ,” Sungjin insists, appalled, and Brian groans.

\--

The next day, there’s no message on the paper.

There’s actually - there’s actually nothing on the paper, and Brian’s mind goes so far as to wonder if he needs a blacklight for this or something when it occurs to him to  _ turn it over, maybe _ ? So he does, and. And.

And. Holy shit.

It’s a phone number. It’s a phone number,  _ Dowoon’s _ phone number, probably, and a little message underneath that takes Brian much longer than necessary to read because he’s just-  _ holy shit _ . 

_ Because it’s 2017 _ , it says.

_ Holy shit _ , Brian’s mind repeats. He doesn’t even have the capacity to tell himself to shut up.

“You okay there?”

He startles so hard he drops the note, and watches his entire wellbeing drain away as Jae, having just arrived and absolutely no clue about the whole note thing (because he’s a terrible friend who doesn’t tell people things), picks it up and scans it briefly. Brian can pinpoint the exact moment he realizes who it’s from, exactly, as all the color and good natured amusement drains from his face and his eyes widen to the size of saucers. In that moment, multiple scenarios run through his head like those scenes in sports animes - will Jae get mad at him? Will he be teased until the end of time? Will he, magically, pretend it never happened and start rambling to him about an idea for his next tweet? (He hopes it’s the last one.)

But, despite visualizing nearly everything up to and including exiting via mythical creature, he’s not prepared when Jae looks up at him, eyes blocked by the thin wire frame of his glasses, and says, quieter than Dowoon even, “be careful, Brian.”

And something in him snaps. He doesn’t know why - attributes it to the growing feeling of never really  _ knowing  _ his supposed best friend, to the betrayal growing within him with each secret Jae hints at but never reveals. And, yeah, the guy’s a little like Atlas, shouldering the weight of the world of pain he’s both caused and been through, but that’s what friends are  _ for _ . Yeah, Jae has excess baggage, but it’s infuriating how he doesn’t see that Brian would be willing to carry all of that and more if he asked. How he’s willing to shoulder a piece of the world with him.

So instead of taking it calmly, albeit with a little confusion, he does the douchebag thing and snaps, “ _ why _ ? _ Why _ do I have to be careful around him? Jesus, Jae, you keep telling me that but you never tell me  _ why _ , and I don’t know what he was like back then but I know what he’s like now, and there’s nothing about him that I need to be  _ careful _ about. So why the hell-”

“Because I don’t want you to hurt him, you dumbass!”

Brian’s mouth snaps shut promptly, the sound echoing through the silence that’s enveloped the classroom at the sudden outburst. In front of him, Jae is standing with his palms splayed across his desk, shoulders heaving and gaze burning even through the wire and glass. “Because,” he says, quieter now, as the volume in the class returns to normal, “I know what it’s like to want to get closer to him. He’s lonely, and sad, and those little rare smiles pull you in and turn your world upside down. I know. But I also know that he’s broken, Brian, and he needs someone to stitch him up, not someone to rip open his wounds and pour alcohol in them. And you’re a great guy, you really are, I love you to the ends of the earth and all that, but you’re  _ exactly _ that kind of person. So I’m not telling you to be careful because  _ he’ll  _ hurt  _ you _ , I’m telling you to be careful because  _ you’ll _ hurt  _ him _ . Okay?”

And. Brian opens his mouth, and closes it again, the words getting stuck at the lump that’s risen in his throat, mind buzzing with white noise. “I’m sorry,” he says, finally, because that’s all he really can say. 

Jae seems to deflate at that, eyes closing as he sighs and sits down. “It’s okay,” he says. “I- I know too well what’s it’s like to-” he takes off his glasses then, and that’s when he knows it’s really bad, because he only does that when he’s about to say something that takes a tremendous amount of effort. “-to want to be around him,” he finishes, and if Brian thinks that he maybe wanted to say  _ love _ instead, he doesn’t mention it. “Just. Please, Brian.”

Brian nods, because what else can he do? “I will,” he says softly, because it feels like he’s staring into the darkest part of Jae’s soul. “Thanks, Jae.”

Jae smiles up at him, a new smile that’s softer and more meaningful than the ones he’s used to getting, before a light switches on in him and he brightens up so fast Brian gets emotional whiplash. “So, this really crazy thing happened yesterday-”

Brian laughs along with him, heart heavy, and tries not to look at Dowoon when he walks in, minutes later.


	4. out of my mind

[10:02 am]

ugh i fucking hate this class kill me now

Lol hey Younghyun

dont fucking lol me u piece of shit

note: in the future dont take gr11 business if u love urself

Wasn’t planning to, but thanks anyways

is that a comma i c u pretentious piece of shit

listen u might think ur above this now but just u wait

oh god it just registered to me that ur like 11 wtf

Younghyun I’m only two years younger than you

my point still stands

i cant believe u actually use apostrophes

what an asshole

If I’m such an asshole why are you texting me instead of paying attention?

stfu

u brat

i hope u get salmonella

Well.

Remember that egg?

oh

my god

i shouldnt have said anything

bye

Bye, Younghyun

i hate u so much

 

[11:45 am]

sungjin tells me to tell u to stop doing hw n eat smth

Who’s Sungjin?

Also why are you texting me I’m not that far from your table

And you obviously know where I am

i hate to bring this up but last time i talked 2 u @ ur table things did not go so well

Point

stop being self aware it bothers me

also sungjin is like. the dad friend

i think my parents want him more as a son than me

I don’t blame them to be honest

fuck off u piece of shit

i miss angsty dowoon can i have him back

We’re the same person, you know

yeah but

remember when u didnt sass me every chance u got

fun times maybe we should bring that back

Does unnecessary reminiscing come with old age or is it just a you thing

this is what im fucking talking abt

if u start making old jokes i swear

Maybe back in your day that was considered threatening but it doesn’t work now

bACK IN MY DAY

thats it fuck u im not talking 2 u anymore

That’s what you said last time too

Look how well that worked out

jfc

 

[2:03 pm]

Someone just said that the moon was a planet

And you wonder why I’m so angsty all the time

what did i tell u abt the self aware thing

but also holy shit

the moon isnt a planet???

…

lol im joking calm down

im no u but im not that fkn dumb

I’m not that smart, you know. I just like math

It’s easy

u kno maybe saying that to some1 whos failing math isnt such a good idea

u prick

Sorry

I can tutor you again if you want

.

yes pls

:)

but 4 the record i still hate u

 

[10:38 pm]

Younghyun?

yeet

whats with the punctuation

u good?

Yeah.

I just. Wanted to make sure you were still there.

???

Sorry. This sounds weird, I know

It’s okay now though. Don’t worry

if u say so

go 2 sleep dowoon

First reminiscing

Now nagging

And you say you’re not old

nvm i take that back i hope ur sleep schedule is ruined 4 the rest of ur life

K

 

[12:15 am]

Younghyun?

dowoon its late as fuck what is it

Thank you.

im so confused but also tired so

ur welcome

now srsly go to sleep

Ok, ok

 

[8:24 am]

am i just dumb bc i legit dont understand anything

Meet me at my table at lunch and I’ll explain it to you if you want

i love u

Without even a first date? Moving a bit fast aren’t we

id take it back but i need help so

just u wait

2nd semester im coming for u yoon dowoon

Oh man I’m so scared

fuk off u cunt

 

[11:01 am]

where r u

Class let out late give me a second

I see you hold up

omg

i c u ok stop waving ur arm so hard

if u dislocate ur shoulder im not taking u 2 the hospital

I’m hurt :(

did u just

use an emoji

oh my god

However angsty you think I am I can guarantee you I’m only like half as bad

says the one who literally ran when i made a joke abt leaving

Low blow Younghyun

dont younghyun me u piece of shit

im coming over hold up

 

[2:13 pm]

The same girl who asked if the moon was a planet now thinks that nuking an ‘unnecessary country’ is a good way to show our nuclear prowess

Even the teacher looks so done with her shit

Get me out of here please

r u asking 2 skip class

bad kid

I’m only two years younger

did i fucking stutter

listen anthro is pre boring too so wanna just lowkey text

Aren’t we technically already doing that

ok bye

No wait

I’m so bored please don’t leave I think I’m going to stab myself with something

dang its that bad huh

ok fine

u kno exams r coming up right

u prepared?

Already started studying

fucking overachiever

ok thats good

some classes r like. Info dumps so focus on those

dont expect to sleep for the next two weeks or so

yea thats pre much it

I feel enlightened already

Is this my awakening

Will you guide me on the road to self-discovery

u piece of shit

:)

ok but on a realer note

i get hella busy during exams cuz ya kno gr11 is acc important so

at some point i wont b able 2 respond 4 a while

just a heads up

Yeah that’s fine

Take care of yourself though

ur one 2 talk

but thx

u 2

hey wanna look at some dog memes

When do I not

thats what i wanted 2 hear

 

[2:59 pm]

so can we make tutoring like a regular thing

I thought it already was?

It seems we have some communication issues we need to sort out

fck off u twat

im being serious here

can we do a thing where we meet up every other day at lunch

Don’t you have any clubs

lol no

tbh idk y i even try so hard im just gonna take over my moms company l8er anyways

It must be nice, having a career set for you

I don’t even know what I’m going to do

My head is just numbers and rhythms and nothing else

And that’s not exactly what employers are looking for

dude dont say that ur a fkn genius

look ill hire u

Wow is this what it feels like to have rich friends

Are you going to start paying for rent too

go away

but ill c u tmrw at lunch right?

Yup

See you then, Younghyun

kk

 

[8:18 am]

u good?

lookin a lil blue there buddy

I’m fine, I’m fine

Sometimes I forget Jae’s in my class

am i allowed 2 ask or

cuz i kno a lil bit of what he did in middle school n shit

Oh, yeah

Man, it was bad

I’m glad he’s happy now, though

And I guess I kind of understand why he did what he did and where all those things were coming from and stuff

Still hurts a bit

But it’s ok

ok look

u opening up is gr8 n all

but i legit dont kno what ur talking abt

Oh. Did he not tell you?

all i know is that his dad was literally satan

Yeah, basically

And, uh

Nevermind

It’s ok

Pay attention to the teacher Younghyun

again with the younghyun thing

u sure?

Yeah

ok

 

[12:03am]

oh man its starting

What is?

Moratorium?

not just moratorium

the collective deaths of everyone in the school

including the staff

You know, high school is a lot less clique and a lot more wanting to die than I’d thought.

yea pre much

oh god i think i already have a headache

ok i gtg study now

gn

Try to sleep soon at least

I’m the one who’s supposed to look dead here

again with the self awareness

its too early and too late for this shit

Sorry, sorry

Have fun studying

dont u mean have fun dying

cuz thats what im doing rn

Right, right

 

[4:43 pm]

Younghyun

Are you okay?

When you said it was gonna be bad I didn’t know you meant this bad

 

[12:21 am]

Younghyun

Come on at least check in to tell me you’re okay

Younghyun please

I know you care about your grades but this isn’t healthy

Younghyun

 

[8:12 am]

Oh my god you look like you’re going to cry

That’s it

\--

    Brian doesn’t really know what’s happening.

    He blinks and all he can see is the imprint of paragraphs upon paragraphs of textbook definitions. It’s been a week since he’s so much as touched his phone for reasons other than checking the time or calling his parents to let them know he’ll be spending a few hours in the library, and the same amount of time (although it feels like much longer, if he’s completely honest with himself) since he’s talked to Dowoon.

    And he knows. He knows, sees the notifications pop up on his screen, frayed mind catching onto a few words before he moves, instinctively, to delete it. It’s been like this with the others, too - with Jae and Sungjin, and with his parents, sometimes. It’s been like this for all of his high school life.

    This is something he doesn’t know the answer to - why he destroys himself just for the sake of a perfect grade or a three-percent rise in his average, especially since his mom has already paved a future out for him since he was born. Maybe it’s because of his dad, who looks back on his academic career with nothing but regret and remorse. Maybe it’s because of some deep inner insecurity, the knowledge that he’s not really good at anything except small pieces of songs hastily scribbled on napkins and receipts. Either way, it’s become tradition for him now, and even Sungjin has grown used to it.

    Not Dowoon, though. (Never Dowoon.)

    He’s leaving the school library after another hours-long session spent poring over the nonfiction section, dragging his feet against the dirty linoleum, not looking anywhere or thinking about anything through the radio static of his mind. He thinks he can feel his sanity slowly unspooling when, all of a sudden, jarringly familiar cold fingers wrap around his wrist, and he looks up to see Dowoon staring at him, with an intensity that shines clear even through the hair that dusts against his eyelashes.

    Brian stares straight back, too tired to come up with some witty retort or even pull away, and Dowoon’s eyes soften as he takes in his disheveled state. “Come on,” he murmurs, tugging at his hand in a way that would’ve driven Brian crazy if he was a little more conscious.

    But he’s not - he’s not conscious, not really, feels barely alive, and off-balance more than anything. So when Dowoon tugs a little at his hand - in a way that would’ve driven him crazy, if he were _just a little more conscious_ \- he stumbles forward, and the half of a mind that he has left catches him before he barrels straight into Dowoon’s collarbone. The very same half of a mind, notably, that also somehow notices through his incredible exhaustion that Dowoon is so, so close, and emanates a kind of heat that’s so, so inviting despite the cold curl of his fingers, still on his wrist.

    And he doesn’t even think; doesn’t think about things like consequences and repercussions because all he sees is the inviting curve of Dowoon’s shoulder, positioned at just the right height, and how tired he really is. And he doesn’t even think, not really, before leaning forward and burying his face into that curve, that warmth.

    “Oh,” the younger’s voice is soft and lower than ever, and with an undertone to it that could almost pass as fond worry. “God, Younghyun. You should’ve told me if it was this bad.”

    Brian makes a little whimpering noise at the back of his throat, a sound he’d berate himself for if he were less close to falling asleep and also if Dowoon hadn’t pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. And he’s _warm_ , so warm, and so strong, and he feels kind of safe, so he closes his eyes and lets himself slip away for the first time in days.

\--

    “-he has such good friends.”

    Brian wakes up with a jolt, mind still in the school library, hands scrambling for his phone, a textbook, a pencil, anything to reinforce his reality. But what his fingers find purchase on instead is soft fabric, warm in a strangely familiar way, and _oh god._

    He’s fully awake now, head reeling, exhaustion still nipping at the edges of his consciousness but kept at bay for the most part because _oh god_ Dowoon is in the back of one of his family’s cars, chatting with Charles, hand in his hair because he’d been _lying with his head in Dowoon’s lap._

    _Oh god_.

    “Oh,” Dowoon says, after Charles trails off in the middle of his sentence, having noticed the fact that Brian was currently conscious and also maybe freaking out. A little bit. “You’re awake.”

    Brian coughs, croaks out a weak, “and you’re in my car.”

    “That I am,” Dowoon huffs, looking mildly amused but mostly worried. “I’d yell at you more, but you really do need to sleep.”

    _Sleep_ . The concept has become distant to him at this point, some unattainable paradise shining weakly at the end of a dark tunnel. Brian yawns at the thought of it, eyelids already becoming heavy, and normally he’d care more about the fact that _his head is in Dowoon’s lap,_ but his limbs and brain feel like jello so all he can do is ask, “did you carry me out?”

    “Like a newlywed bride,” Charles confirms from the driver’s seat, and Brian is just conscious enough to see Dowoon flush redder than the sunset rolling by. “I would’ve taken a picture, but Dowoon looked like he was going to die.”

    “Hey,” Brian sniffs, still conscious enough to understand a dig when he hears one. “I’m not _that_ heavy. Don’t you think, Dowoon?”

    Dowoon makes a sound like he’s swallowing back a laugh, patting the top of his head comfortingly. “Hey, are you half-asleep or drunk?”

    Brian thinks that’s a stupid question. And that Dowoon is so, so warm. “You’re so, so warm,” he tells him, tapping his thigh a bit. “And in really good shape. Wow. I’m kind of jealous.”

    “I’m glad you think so, Younghyun,” Dowoon answers, which makes Brian pleased. From the driver’s seat, Charles looks just a little bit amused and a little bit like he knows something they don’t.

    A few minutes pass in silence, Brian snuffling and tapping Dowoon’s thigh and marvelling at how it doesn’t give in at all underneath his fingers, until the car slowly halts and Charles says, almost regretfully, “We’re home. I’ve got him from here, Dowoon - you’re welcome to stay for a few minutes, and then I can send you back home.”

    Brian thinks he sees Dowoon nodding, shifting a bit as if to move Brian off of him, and all he can think is _no_. He’s not really sure where he is or who he is, but he’s absolutely certain that if Dowoon leaves he might actually cry. And Brian Kang is not a crier.

    So when Charles comes around to their door and Dowoon reaches over to unbuckle his seatbelt, Brian makes a sound of protest and bunches his fist around as much school uniform fabric as he can get. “No,” he says, but he barely managed staying awake through the comforting rocking of the car and the feeling of Dowoon’s hand in his hair, and already he can feel his consciousness slipping away. “Stay,” he says. “Don’t leave.”

    Dowoon huffs, trying to sound impatient, but what comes out instead makes Brian smile through his sleepiness. “Alright,” he says, finally. “I won’t go anywhere.”

\--

    Even before he’s fully awake Brian knows he is so, so screwed.

    His mom is grinning at him. His dad is grinning at him. Charles is grinning at him. Marybeth, the maid who comes over every week to clean and gossip with his parents about when he’s going to get a boyfriend, is grinning at him.

    And Dowoon. Dowoon is - actually. Where is Dowoon?

    He sits up, registering the feeling of being mentally stable for the first time in days, and blinks the exhaustion out of his eyes. “Whatever you think this is,” he says slowly, although his threatening tone is mildly offset by the way his voice cracks at the beginning, “it’s not.”

    No one says anything for an uncomfortable period of time before Marybeth says, in a loud burst like she’s been holding it in for a long time, “Mason is a great name for your first child, isn’t it?”

    “Oh my god,” Brian mumbles, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying desperately not to be consumed by despair.

    Of course, it’s then that the sound of a flushing toilet and running tap emerge from the washroom, and all pairs of eyes turn just as Dowoon emerges from behind the closed door, pushing his hair back with one hand. (And if the sight of Dowoon’s forehead and a random leap in Brian’s heartbeat line up, it’s purely coincidental.) He stops abruptly, aware of the sudden attention, and puts his hands up slowly in a sign of confused surrender. “Uh… what’s up?”

    While his mom, clearly having just gotten home, engages in pleasantries, Charles, his dad and Marybeth all lean in simultaneously and whisper, respectively, “he’s perfect”, “marry him”, and “ _oh my god look at how cute he is._ ” Brian kind of wants to disown himself.

    He’s about to tell the same to the people surrounding him when Dowoon suddenly materialises at his side, his mom exchanging meaningful looks with everyone else in the room. (It’s like they’re part of some weird social experiment.) Brian stands up, reaching out to touch his elbow instinctively and cheering inwardly when Dowoon doesn’t move away.

    “Sorry,” he says, desperate to keep his voice low and out of earshot from the four _adults_ (although that’s stretching the definition a bit) grinning at them like groupies, “did they give you a hard time?”

    Dowoon shakes his head, smiling a little, and all the tension that had been building up in Brian's body relaxes at the sight. (He’ll think about the significance of that later.) “They were great,” he assures, careful to match his volume. “How are you holding up? You look much better, by the way,” he adds, and maybe it’s the lighting but Brian swears he can see red creep up from underneath his collar. Over Dowoon’s shoulder, he watches the adults crowd into the kitchen, where they can pretend to not be watching them.

    “I remember what it feels like to be alive again,” Brian jokes, and realizes abruptly that he hasn’t bothered to ask about how Dowoon, who’d had bad habits since the beginning of the year, is doing at the most stressful period of the semester. “How are you, by the way? Getting enough sleep?”

    “More than you,” Dowoon reprimands, “and I thought _you_ were supposed to be the good role model here.”

    Brian rolls his eyes but can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth at that familiar snark, the bite of razor-sharp wit and humor that’s at times gotten him through an entire day. “Sometimes I wonder why I ever missed you.”

    As he speaks, Dowoon’s smile falters at the beginning of his sentence; he watches, and it takes him a while to smile again, like he’d almost forgotten how. It’s worrying, and Brian has half a mind to ask him about it, but then he says, “I should probably go,” and it’s weird because Brian’s not half-asleep anymore and yet he still stops him when he turns.

    “Why am I asking you to stay?” he asks, because the confusion in Dowoon’s eyes mirror the confusion that’s beginning to brew in his stomach. (And, underneath that confusion, there’s something else - something terrifyingly unsurprising, like it’s been lying benign for a while.)

    “Maybe that’s something you should ask yourself.” Dowoon’s voice is strained like he tried for amusement but failed, and Brian doesn’t know whether he should be grateful or not that he still hasn’t averted his eyes. “What is this, Younghyun?” he asks, and Brian thinks he can see a little pain in the way he looks at him.

    Brian laughs, then, because he doesn’t understand anything at all. There’s this faint buzzing at the back of his conscious, like cicadas on a summer night, except more urgent and hidden and he’s not sure he wants to know what it means. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, and he leans forward a little, subconsciously, warmth spreading all the way to his toes.

    Dowoon meets him halfway, foreheads bumping together, and Brian notices in the miniscule part of his mind that isn’t completely overtaken by just _Dowoon_ that the younger boy is just a little shorter despite their obvious difference in build. Without thinking - because he’s forgotten how - he lifts a hand and fits it against the curve of Dowoon’s cheek, revelling in the stuttered breath that results, the way his eyes flutter closed, entire body leaning closer.

    Slowly, slowly - Brian feels himself unraveling from his fingertips, and his perception of reality does the same because what was life before Dowoon?

    “It’s like,” he says, so quiet he almost can’t hear himself, “I’ve had my entire life figured out before you. So why did you have to mess it all up?”

    Dowoon laughs, just a little too loud, and the bubble around them shatters as reality snaps painfully back into place, the two of them stumbling away from each other in simultaneous shock. “Maybe I should leave,” he repeats, but Brian can’t really hear him because his head is spinning and his heart is pounding and all he can think is _Dowoon._

    “Maybe you should,” he agrees. _Because I don’t know what I’d do if you stayed_ , he doesn’t say, because he’s not sure he wants to admit it himself. _Because I don’t know what this is, anymore._ As if by magic, Charles appears between them, smiling that placating smile that’s just a little more stiff than usual. Brian wants to cry in relief as he guides Dowoon out the door, picking up his stuff and offering to drive him home, closing it behind him with one final concerned glance back.

    The moment the door closes, the sound echoing through the sudden cavern in Brian’s chest, he stumbles upstairs, limbs weak. He can hear his parents calling out to him, obviously sensing the shift in mood, but he can’t be bothered to answer them because he is so, so tired.

    So, so tired, and maybe missing Dowoon a little bit.

    He’s glad sleep comes quickly to his depraved body, because all he can think about lying in bed is what it would feel like to be close to those dark eyes, limbs folded together, to feel those cold fingers underneath his own. To wake up forehead-to-forehead with that warmth every single morning.

    Just before he falls asleep, his brain registers distantly that he is so, so fucked.


	5. man in a movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can tell when Dowoon spots him, too, because the younger starts running towards him, and they probably look like lovers (lovers) reuniting at an airport with how fast the distance between them is closing but he doesn't care.  
> (It’s not nearly fast enough.)

Okay, so he might be attracted to Dowoon.

This is something that he’s come to terms with more or less - after all, who can blame him? Dowoon is smart, and funny, and nice enough once you get over the not being able to process emotion thing, not to mention well-built and  _ really cute _ -

Okay, so he might be attracted to Dowoon.

So what? It shouldn’t bother him. After all, nothing’s really changed - they text, they talk, Dowoon occasionally comes over to his house to make sure he’s not destroying himself studying. He has other things to focus on; there’s less than a week left until exams, and he has a feeling that Dowoon’s trust in him is still fragile, so he really has no right to be expecting anything more than friendship. What Dowoon needs is someone to support him and be there whenever he’s ready to open up, to convince him he’s worthy of people caring about him, not someone who wants to get in his pants. Not that Brian wants to get in his pants, or anything, if anything he just maybe wants to hold hands and-

And. It shouldn’t bother him, this little thing that’s barely a crush, but it does.

What makes it worse is that Dowoon’s beginning to get more comfortable with him, too - physically and emotionally, which would be great if Brian didn’t die every time they made physical contact. It’s just small things, like brushing a hand against his shoulder by way of greeting, pressing a palm to his forehead to make sure he hasn’t contracted a fever, knocking their knees together whenever Brian sits at his table at lunch - meaningless things, really, but it’s how casually he does it that makes Brian feel like he’s being reborn every time. Like if he did a little more, they could  _ be _ more - a couple, maybe.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little more than just a little crush.

“His  _ hands _ ,” he complains loudly to his dad, sitting at opposite ends of the small table they’ve got set up for when there aren’t any guests and it’s just the three of them. “They’re so _ nice _ , they’re like long and his fingers are all crooked but in a weirdly artsy way, and it’s so unfair. How come I get the callouses and he gets the marble sculpture hands?”

His dad just looks amused, which is unfair because he  _ clearly _ doesn’t know the pain of having a crush on Yoon Dowoon, of all people. “Ah, I remember this phase,” he says, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “Did great things for my art - my emotional health, not so much. But, Brian,” he leans his elbows on the surface of the table, and Brian distantly registers an ‘oh shit’ kind of feeling, “are you completely sure it’s unrequited?”

Brian feels a whole new wave of despair attack him and buries his head in his hands. “If it were anyone other than Dowoon, I’d have said no,” he bemoans. “But because the guy’s just starting to learn how to trust people again - I think it’s just him not being used to friendship, not any attraction on his part. Which is, really, the worst.”

“You know,” his dad starts, “that’s actually what I thought about your mom just before we started dating. She was a pretty messed up person back then, so when she finally started warming up, I just thought it was because I was the first real friend she’d ever had and not because she liked me back. I’m not saying you’re completely wrong in thinking it’s got something to do with the way his brain is wired, but there  _ is  _ a chance there, you know.”

“But-” Brian intercedes, his dad making a noise like  _ why is my son so emotionally stunted _ , but it’s then that the doorbell rings, and his heart rate accelerates to the speed of light. His dad, having taken note of his reaction, only raises an eyebrow at him before going to answer the door. Brian buries his head in his hands in despair.

“Hey guys, come in,” he hears his dad say from the front door, and his heart  _ doesn’t _ sink when he realizes it’s Jae and Sungjin coming over to study. It  _ doesn’t _ . And if he stays seated even as the house fills with the sound of them making small talk, not making any efforts to be a good host or even a decent friend, well - that’s unrelated, really.

“Whoa, Brian Kang  _ not studying _ the day before exams? Who are you and what have you done to my best friend?” He hears Jae rather than sees him and doesn’t even flinch when a hand smacks the back of his head affectionately, followed closely by Sungjin’s patented Disappointed Sound. 

“Don’t talk to me, I’m suffering emotionally,” he says into the grain of the table. He hasn’t told either of them about his newfound feelings for Dowoon - or The Problem, as he’s affectionately titled it. He hasn’t told them a lot of things lately, despite their ongoing status as his best friends, and a deep current of guilt floods at his conscience at the realization. 

_ Soon, _ he promises himself, and he’s never one to break promises.  _ I’ll tell them soon. _

\--

“So, uh,” he starts, later into the day when it’s too bright to turn the lights on but just dark enough for them to be squinting at their notebooks, and he’s had just enough time to prepare what he’s going to say and visualize all the various ways the conversation could go. (Scenarios usually don’t go the way he braces himself for them to go, but that’s okay - hopefully.) “I kinda have something… important to tell you guys.”

“You have a crush on Dowoon,” Sungjin and Jae say in a droning unison, not even bothering to look up from their notes.

(Actually, nevermind - this is completely not okay.)

“It’s obvious,” Sungjin continues, and Brian’s not sure whether to be appalled or grateful his voice drowns out the embarrassing choking sounds he seems to be exclusively capable of making, “you spend almost two years glaring at people who accidentally bump into you in the hallways, and then suddenly you’re going out of your way to do nice things for this guy and texting him all of Anthro. Really, we knew before you did, probably.” He cocks his head at Jae, and Brian thinks  _ shit. What is Jae going to think about this _ ?

Jae, like he’d expected, is grinning broadly, but it’s fake in a way that’s grotesque and almost painful to look at.  “Congrats, dude. Man, we’re gonna have  _ so _ much blackmail from now on.” 

Which is - well. Maybe he’s just tired of being confused all the time, or maybe he really is just delusional, but Brian finds himself not even hesitating before asking, “Hey, are you sure you’re okay with it?”

“Yeah.” Brian watches Jae’s expression, analyses cloudy irises and downturned lips. “I mean, I’m  _ way _ over him. Still feel like shit every time I look at him, but all of that’s in the past.”

Brian shares a look of frantic confusion with Sungjin before the designated mom friend speaks up. “Over him as in, you were  _ into _ him at some point?”

This is weird. This is  _ so  _ weird. Not just the fact that Jae doesn’t seem scared by the questions for once despite the familiar darkness in his eyes, but that they’re actually asking him questions in the first place instead of waiting and trusting and hoping. Thankfully, Sungjin looks just as shocked as he feels.

And that’s precisely when, hunched over the familiar chipped wood of their smaller dining table, blending in with the rest of the house like he belongs there, Park Jaehyung drops the biggest bomb of their entire three-year friendship. 

“Yeah,” he says, and oh, this is a whole new kind of pain Brian’s not trained to react to. “Actually, I’m pretty sure we were dating.”

Brian chokes on his own spit and starts coughing so hard Jae has to reach over and pat him on the back in concern. Sungjin stands up so fast his chair topples over, and walks into another room to mutter to himself. Brian’s mom walks into the kitchen, assesses the situation, and walks back out in a matter of seconds. Upstairs, a door slams shut.

“I’m sorry,” Brian says, once his entire existence is no longer preoccupied with the very real threat of dying of suffocation and Sungjin has returned, albeit looking a little more hassled than before, “did you say what I think I heard? Because man, this exhaustion must really be getting to me because-”

Jae smiles, broken, and Sungjin looks like he wants to leave again. “I could be Snapchatting this everywhere right now,” he jokes, but even he doesn’t laugh at his own joke, “be grateful I’m such a good friend. But, yeah, you heard right. Dowoon and I were a thing back in middle school. Kind of gross now, considering he was 11 and I was 13, but hey, you can’t blame me. The guy’s cute.”   
Brian almost wants to say _ I know right, he’s so cute it’s unfair _ , but then gears click in the miniscule part of his brain that makes the logical decisions and he blurts out before he can stop himself, “but your dad-”

“Was a homophobic piece of shit, yeah,” Jae affirms. “That’s actually why I, uh, fucked him up so badly. Because he liked me, I liked him back, we kind of dated for a month or so and I forced my friends to shut up about it, but eventually my dad found out. Took my phone, texted Dowoon and told him he was disgusting, deserved to die and that I never really liked him, just thought he was easy and desperate. That’s actually why I finally called the police - and thank God, too, because can you imagine? Good riddance.”

Brian’s head is spinning, pain and anger on behalf of his friend setting his entire conscious on fire. Suddenly, everything makes sense - Jae’s reaction upon first seeing Dowoon, Dowoon’s reaction upon realizing he was friends with Jae, Dowoon’s entire mentality - it was all because of some douchebag who didn’t deserve a kid as easy-going and giving as Jae. It was all because of Jae’s dad, like most of the shit in Jae’s past was because of Jae’s dad. It was all because-

Wait.

“Wait,” Brian says. “Does this mean Dowoon thinks  _ you _ think he’s disgusting and deserves to die and that your entire relationship was a lie?” When Jae doesn’t answer, a different kind of anger rises like bile in his throat - not anger  _ for  _ his best friend, but anger towards him. “Jae. All these years, you’ve never told him it wasn’t you?” His voice sounds threateningly low even to his own ears, and the looks Sungjin’s shooting him from the other side of the table only confirms that. “You  _ never told him _ ?”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Jae asks, and if Brian didn’t know any better he’d think that the guy sounds a little like he’s going to cry, voice breaking in frustration. “You think every time I see him, I want to tell him everything? I regret it - of  _ course _ I regret it, Brian. You know I regret everything about those three years. But- but I never can. I just - I’m a real fucking coward, but when I saw you two getting close I hoped that maybe you would, I don’t know, fix him in all the ways I couldn’t and still can’t. God, I don’t know what I would say,” he says.

Brian has never felt shittier in his entire life, and Sungjin in his infinite maternal prowess senses it and opens his mouth to maybe dissipate the tension a little. But it’s then that the doorbell rings, crisp sound ringing through the room and cutting through the atmosphere in one clean stroke. Brian stands up, maybe a little too fast, and stammers out “I-I’ll get that.”

He stumbles to the door, head still spinning a little, but this time there’s a bit of guilt and self-hatred in that mix. It’s at times like these that he realizes just how privileged and ignorant he really is - being born into a rich and loving family, what right does he have to tell Jae, who’s never had anything good for a long, long time and still manages to light up whole rooms, what he should and shouldn’t do? What right does he have to do anything at all?

Just as he starts spiralling into a pit of dangerously deprecating introspection, he opens the door, and  _ wow _ , he’s not sure whether this helps or not.

“Dowoon,” he says, trying desperately to ignore the redness he can  _ feel _ consuming every inch of his skin and the erratic beating of his traitorous heart because Dowoon is  _ here _ , he’s here and he’s close and yeah he’s been here before but not while Brian had known what he knows now. “This really isn’t a good time.”

He doesn’t miss the way Dowoon’s face falls, chalks it up to the whole socially-stunted thing because this is too much to process for one person and in such a short amount of time. What does one do when your best friend tells you he used to date your current crush? Especially when said crush is standing a mere foot away, dressed in a loose black sweater that nearly hangs off his shoulders, collarbones almost shimmering in the porch light and making Brian question everything he’s ever known?  _ Especially _ when said crush is looking at him with concern and something that almost could be fondness, almost like - almost like a boyfriend?

Brian kind of wants to call a time-out. He’s not equipped to deal with all of this at once. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says, deep voice resonating through Brian’s chest, and  _ fucking hell _ can’t this guy stop being attractive for like a singular second of his existence? Is that really so much to ask? “You’re eating healthy, right? Getting enough sleep?”

Brian rolls his eyes. “Not a  _ third  _ mom,” he complains, because even when his entire world feels backwards and wrong he still manages to be a piece of shit. “I’m fine, really,” he insists. Dowoon is close,  _ so _ close, and he has to swallow around the urge to step forward and lean in, like he’d done just days earlier. “Worry more about yourself, yeah?”

After that day, when Dowoon had closed the distance between them and rendered all his previous attractions completely and utterly insignificant, they don’t mention it ever again, going back to relative normalcy. They text, they joke, they say hi to each other in the hallways and sometimes before math class, but Brian doesn’t try to make physical contact again - doesn’t let himself, even if the desire to just reach out and  _ touch _ renders him incapable of thinking straight. He’s not sure what he’d do if he did, if there was ever a repeat of  _ that day _ , and he doesn’t want to ruin what he already has, so he maintains a respectful distance and tries to ignore the buzzing in the back of his mind. Ignores the cold that envelops him in Dowoon’s wake, tries not to recall the feeling of complete and utter warmth, the sensation of unraveling bit by bit. 

_ Why did you have to fall for Dowoon of all people _ , he scolds himself.

“I’ll be fine,” Dowoon says, and something catches his eye as he looks past Brian and into the house. “I didn’t know you had guests.”

_ Shit. _

Brian turns, ready to do anything in his power to not destroy the entire world by making a vulnerable Jae and open-eyed Dowoon confront each other, but it’s too late. He watches, with a sinking feeling, as his friends emerge from the kitchen, and hears, distantly, the sound that machines make when Pac-Man dies. 

But of course, he’d forgotten about Park Sungjin, all-knowing dad friend. Park Sungjin, professional nagger and utter godsend.

With one look, he and Sungjin spring into action simultaneously, the former ushering Dowoon out the door, the latter shoving Jae back into the kitchen. Brian follows Dowoon onto the porch, and shoots a grateful look back before closing the door. If this is how Captain America felt when he destroyed a Nazi-run facility and prevented the probable end of the world, he understands why he’d want to stay a superhero despite the constant threat of death.

“What’s wrong?” Dowoon asks, and  _ wow _ , he is a  _ lot _ closer than Brian had anticipated. Brian can almost feel his voice resonating through his ribcage. He turns around, and sure enough the younger boy bumps into him, forehead knocking against his nose painfully. The impact sends Dowoon stumbling back, and Brian, out of instinct, steps forward and wraps an arm around his waist to steady him before he falls down the porch steps. 

_ This is fucking ridiculous _ , the logical part of his brain screams at him - because this entire situation has just devolved into a K-Drama - as Dowoon stares up at him in surprise, cheeks dusted pink. They’re so close their noses are almost touching, chests pressed together, Dowoon’s foot in between Brian’s, and really Brian is in such a state of shock that he would’ve stayed like that for another ten minutes if his arm weren’t protesting so loudly. He backs up slowly until Dowoon’s upright, and removes his arm from his waist but doesn’t walk away - can’t, really, because for all the self-control he claims to have there’s something about this proximity that removes all of his common sense. The fact that Dowoon doesn’t move either doesn’t exactly help, and for a while they stand there, almost touching but not.

Then, because Brian’s mind is terrible and he really needs to get a new one, he remembers Jae’s words -  _ actually, I’m pretty sure we were dating. _

And those are the words that break the dam. Suddenly, imagining Dowoon being this close or closer to Jae, imagining Dowoon feeling things towards his best friend that he knows he’d never feel towards him floods Brian with an inexplicable jealousy, and this time he’s the one who breaks the bubble and steps away. He steps away, ignores the unreadable expression in Dowoon’s eyes because thinking about it will make everything hurt worse, plasters a grin on his face and asks, “So what’s up?”

His voice sounds strained even to his own ears, so he’s not surprised when Dowoon picks up on it too, but thankfully the latter doesn’t say anything about it. (He kind of wishes he had.) “I’m just checking up on you,” he says. “Also, I was wondering if- if I could, uh, stay here for a bit? I can’t really- I don’t really want to go home, right now.”

There’s a whole other category of questions Brian wants to ask just about that last sentence, but Dowoon looks tired and confused and unbearably sad so he tells him, “come on, let’s go on a walk.” He glances back at the house, where Jae and blessing-in-disguise Sungjin are still waiting, winces, and adds, “in a second. I need to- I need to do something for a sec, but just wait out here and I’ll be right back, okay?”

Dowoon nods, confusion growing, but Brian is trying to balance too many problems at once and he  _ really _ doesn’t have time to clarify the situation so he just smiles in a way that he hopes is reassuring and steps back into the house. 

Sungjin’s waiting at the entrance, and Brian feels the life draining out of him as he tries to describe the situation in a way that won’t make him sound like the worst person ever, which he kind of is. His head is still kind of reeling from  _ Jae and Dowoon dating _ , from Dowoon in general, and Sungjin must be able to spot it because he just nods and says, “I’ve got it taken care of. Go.”

“I’ll buy you banana milk,” Brian offers apologetically, because really, he doesn’t deserve any of his friends. Sungjin narrows his eyes like  _ you better _ , before smiling reassuringly and walking back into the kitchen. Brian can hear him loudly making conversation with Jae, evidently trying to lure him out of the house, and he feels another rush of guilt before he ducks back outside like the terrible person he is.

Dowoon’s leaning against the wall, looking out into the forest that surrounds the house, the porch light throwing blue shadows against the angles of his face. His eyes are sad and pensive but in a soft, childlike way, and in the light his skin looks almost like porcelain, rendered even paler by the black of his sweater. Brian’s kind of always found him incredibly attractive, but this is the first time he’s looked so  _ surreal _ that it takes his breath away and reminds him that he will never, ever stand a chance with this boy, who looks like he’s been built out of snow and red wine. 

But the atmosphere shatters, Dowoon notices him, and the ability to breathe comes back so suddenly Brian feels a bit lightheaded. “Ready to go?” he almost wheezes. 

Dowoon raises an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Brian waves dismissively, trying to look unflappable but probably coming off as a seal going into anaphylactic shock. “Let’s, uh. Go for a walk. Yeah. Exercise is good for you, you know. You’re a growing boy.”

Dowoon rolls his eyes. “Thanks, grandpa.”

“Quit it,” Brian says, flicking him on the arm, and just like that the mood between them reverts to good-natured friendship. (It would be nice, if Brian could just stop thinking about how hot he is.)

Dowoon laughs, bright and open and incredibly detrimental to Brian’s health, and jogs forward a bit to avoid getting flicked again. He turns and walks backwards so he can face Brian, and says, “So. Where to?”

Actually. That’s - that’s a good question. Brian looks up, and reads the nearest road marker. He only knows his way around this neighborhood, and this neighborhood is really just unnecessarily large houses and rich people playing tennis, so he shrugs and tells Dowoon, “your choice. Surprise me.”

Dowoon looks a little amused, and Brian can’t help but fear for his life. “Alright,” he agrees. “No taking it back, though.”

“Oh god, I’m going to die tonight,” Brian says to himself, horrified, and Dowoon laughs.

\--

The walk is - it’s nice. Really, really nice.

They meander through the streets, two dumb kids out way later than they should be, stopping to pet dogs and run through parks and throw coins in fountains. They make it out of the ridiculously rich neighborhood where everything is privileged and boring and into the downtown area, where they pass multiple shops selling bongs and BDSM gear. (“Cover your eyes, you shouldn’t be seeing this,” Brian tells Dowoon, which earns him a kick to the shins.) They walk for what must have been half an hour but only feels like five minutes, as Brian grows used to seeing Dowoon framed by traffic lights and neon signs and they almost lose each other twice. It’s a little too cold for comfort but his skin is buzzing and he’s forgotten all about the past and stupid things like letting his attraction get in the way of having fun. It’s a little too cold for comfort but their hands knock together when they walk side-by-side and Dowoon’s hair is rumpled from the wind, face relaxed and happy and re-learning how to smile. 

It’s a little too cold for comfort, but their hearts are incredibly warm.

Eventually, Dowoon leads him to a side street, guiding him through alleys filled with rusty bikes and scruffy cats that melt into the shadows until they stumble out into what seems like a completely separate part of the city. There’s a river with seemingly no beginning or end splitting two parallel streets, both filled with bars and street vendors and trees filled with lights. There are people milling about - couples, mostly, but also groups of friends and the occasional wandering family. Live music fills the air and mixes with the scent of street food, and the entire place feels so  _ alive _ Brian kind of never wants to go back.

When he finally stops trying to commit the entire landscape to memory, he realizes that Dowoon is staring at him, mouth curved up in a smile that kind of reminds him of all the lights on the river. “What,” he asks, a little defensive, because the way Dowoon is looking at him is – it’s weird. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but it kind of makes him want to shrink away and fix his hair. “I’m uncultured, okay? Don’t judge me.”

Dowoon shakes his head, the smile still intact. “It’s not that,” he says softly, and Brian’s heart just kind of dies. “Come on.” He grabs Brian’s wrist – can something that’s already dead die again? Because he’s pretty sure that’s what just happened – and pulls him down cobblestone streets filled with lights and music, barely giving him time to look around. He’s almost grown used to the pace when Dowoon stops, so suddenly Brian has to catch himself before he breaks a nose on his shoulder blade. They’re in front of a more populated food stall selling lamb skewers and egg wraps, and the smell makes Brian’s mouth water. 

“I don’t have money,” Brian says, because as the rich friend he’s used to paying for things, but Dowoon just waves him off and pulls a few notes out of his back pocket. 

“I’m not broke, you know,” he says in amusement. “Besides, I kind of know the owner, so it’d be fine even if I were.”

Brian frowns at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be the loner here?”

Dowoon glares at him. Brian glares back, although he can feel a smile threatening to consume his face. Thankfully, though, Dowoon breaks first, turning away to laugh into his hand, and Brian lets out a triumphant “ha!” that resonates down the street. “You didn’t  _ win _ anything, Younghyun,” Dowoon says, still chuckling a bit, and if Brian were a little less in love with the scenery he’d be figuring out ways to make Dowoon say his name over and over. “Calm down.”

“Ah, but that’s what  _ you _ think,” Brian says, winking and tapping at his temple. “Mind games, Dowoon. The moment you started to doubt yourself, I’d already won.”

“I never  _ doubted _ -”

“Victory is mine!” Brian says loudly, and Dowoon falls silent, grinning up at him. It’s nice, a little comfortable, and it makes something warm stir in Brian’s chest - something a little more meaningful than just skin-deep attraction. (But he doesn’t dwell on it for too long.)

“Have you forgotten who’s paying for you?” Dowoon asks, raising an eyebrow, and Brian shuts up very quickly.

\--

“... so that’s why I’m not in a private school,” Brian concludes. They’re walking down the seemingly endless street, oil from the skewers dripping down his hand. He’s just finished telling Dowoon the whole story of his incredibly successful businesswoman mother and art school dropout father, how he was raised to always give and never expect. It’s the first time he’s told the story in full, and although it’s not a particularly emotionally heavy or traumatizing one, he’s always held off until the right time. 

And, despite having only known each other for five months, this  _ does _ feel right - the way Dowoon is looking at him at he speaks, like everything he says is incredibly interesting, the contentment in his heart that threatens to spill over and make him do things he’d regret. The lights on the river, reflected in Dowoon’s eyes. 

God, he is so cheesy it’s disgusting. He kind of hates himself.

They reach a more crowded section of the street, where a few shops are having open mic night or sales or free entry, whatever,storefronts barely visible through the masses. Brian loses Dowoon quickly in the sea of people, and it shatters the pleasant atmosphere that had hovered between them the entire night. It’s a little like losing your parent in the grocery store as a kid, except this time there’s no nice woman announcing over the PA that if Brian were to head to the front desk, his parents are waiting for him. No, there’s nothing to stop the mounting panic that threatens to burst from his ribcage as the churning crowd spits him out on the other side alone.

“Dowoon!” he yells, grateful for how his ninth-grade death metal phase has expanded his lung capacity. “Yoon Dowoon!” Why does Dowoon have to have the most generic height and haircut ever? Why can’t he have pulled a Brian and dyed his hair neon pink or something?

He must’ve looked for at least ten minutes, until a bouncer comes out and tells everyone that they won’t be accepting any more people and the crowd dissipates with a dissatisfied murmur. He strains to see through the swirling masses, but even as everyone leaves and he’s left alone, there’s still no Dowoon in sight. A glance at his phone tells him they should be heading home by now, so  _ where _ -

His  _ phone _ . God, he is  _ such _ a dumbass.

Quickly, fingers slowly going numb from the cold and maybe also from Dowoon’s absence, he punches in the numbers and holds his breath in the three rings it takes for him to pick up.

“Hello?” and that’s all it takes for the breath and tension to collectively leave his body, leaving him reeling in relief. “Younghyun?”

“Dowoon,” he says breathlessly, clutching his phone like it’s a lifeline (and it kind of is), “where are you?”

“I’m near the beginning of the street,” Dowoon says, and Brian doesn’t even think before his feet start moving. “Wait for me, I’ll-”

“No,” his voice is so loud a few people turn their heads, but he doesn’t really care, can only think about pale fingers and beautiful eyes and snow and wine and how he’ll never, ever let Dowoon out of his sight again. “I’ll come to you. Wait there, okay?”

There’s a brief pause before Dowoon replies, “okay,” small and hesitant. A brisk wind picks up then, stinging the back of his neck and drawing tears from his eyes, and he can only quicken his pace until he’s nearly running. He looks dumb - he  _ feels _ dumb - but all he can think about is snow and wine and  _ Dowoon _ .

It takes too long - much too long - before he catches sight of the figure at the end of the street, white skin glowing against a black sweater making him break into a sprint. He can tell when Dowoon spots him, too, because the younger starts running towards him, and they probably look like lovers ( _ lovers _ ) reuniting at an airport with how fast the distance between them is closing but he doesn't care.

(It’s not nearly fast enough.)

He doesn’t really think about it when Dowoon is fifteen, ten, five feet away, but maybe there’s no other option than to wrap his arms around the shorter boy’s frame when they meet in the middle, the force of the impact knocking knees and shoulders and hearts together. “God, I thought I’d lost you,” he says into Dowoon’s shoulder, knowing just how melodramatic and ridiculous he’s being. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“It’s okay.” Dowoon’s voice vibrates through his skin, and he closes his eyes and kind of just lets himself melt. “I knew you’d find me. You always do.”

“Always, huh?”  _ What he needs is a friend _ , his mind tells him.  _ What he needs is a friend, not some idiot with an unrequited crush _ . “Maybe you’re right.”

“I always am,” Dowoon jokes, breaking the atmosphere but also kind of making it better. They pull away but not really, arms falling back to their sides but their feet are still touching and Brian’s head is still in Dowoon’s shoulder. This can’t be healthy for him - all this contact, all this  _ maybe _ and yet  _ never enough _ \- but he can’t bring himself to care. He huffs a laugh and thinks he sees Dowoon smiling when he turns his head, booping Dowoon’s neck with his nose.

“You’re such a  _ brat _ ,” he scolds, finally pulling away and feeling so cold. “Why do I put up with you?”

He gets an impish grin in return, which just makes him feel fonder and pretend to be angrier, but then their fingers are lacing together and he’s being tugged towards the exit, towards the real world where exams are in two days and he’ll never, ever stand a chance with this boy. “Come on,” Dowoon says, smiling back at him, “let’s go home.”


	6. it would have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dowoon nods, smile happy and hazy and way too attractive this early in the morning. He’s dressed in similar things as Brian - oh my God, he’s wearing Brian’s clothes. Oh my God. What. What. WHAT.  
> “I did, thanks,” he says, but Brian can barely hear him over the sound of his brain malfunctioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha wow the summary is so misleading  
> also i block out my chapters terribly please don't burn me at the stake

The next morning, Brian stumbles out of his room dressed in a too-big shirt and too-small sweatpants, hair sticking up in multiple angles and morning breath reaching hazardous levels. “Morning,” he calls to the rest of the house, because knowing his dad, he's probably been awake for at least a few hours. His voice cracks embarrassingly, and his throat is scratchy, but it doesn’t really matter because no one’s here to see him, right?

“Morning, Younghyun.”

_Fuck, what the fuck????????_

Slowly (and very, _very_ late), the events of last night come back to his sleep-fogged brain. After they had reached his house, hours after Charles was off from work, his parents had been adamantly against Dowoon walking home alone in the dark, especially after he’d mentioned that his mom was away on a business trip. They’d given Dowoon one of the numerous guest bedrooms, and had sent multiple - too many - winks to Brian behind his back.

Brian loves his parents, he really does, but _what the fuck????????_

“Hey! Dowoon,” he tries to lean against the wall, misses, and almost loses his balance before he catches himself on the banister. (It’s incredibly embarrassing. He kind of wants to die.) “Did you, uh… did you sleep well?”

Dowoon nods, smile happy and hazy and _way_ too attractive this early in the morning. He’s dressed in similar things as Brian - _oh my God, he’s wearing Brian’s clothes_. Oh my God. _What._ _What._ WHAT. “I did, thanks,” he says, but Brian can barely hear him over the sound of his brain malfunctioning. Despite Dowoon’s lean, ropy build, Brian is just a little broader-chested than he is - a fact made all too clear by the way his shirt - _Brian’s shirt, holy shit holy shit holy shit_ \- hangs off of his shoulders in a way that’s less purposeful and more like what one would expect to see after years of living together. After years of _dating_.

Brian doesn’t know if he wants to die or is being reborn. Really, it’s all incredibly confusing.

“Thanks for the clothes, by the way,” Dowoon says, and _wow_ he just made everything simultaneously worse and better by saying that. Also, _how_ is his bedhead so hot? Is this even possible? How is his voice even lower than it normally is? Brian thinks he might have an aneurysm. “Your dad’s out for the day. What do you want for breakfast?”

Brian tries his best not to grimace. _Thanks, Dad_ , he thinks, already picturing his dad’s wolfish grin and excessive, increasingly inappropriate gestures. “Anything that won’t kill me,” he jokes, which makes Dowoon scrunch up his nose and swat at his arm, which is _incredibly_ cute, and it is _way_ too early for this shit.

“As long as you help, I’ll try to keep the murder attempts at bay,” Dowoon promises, following Brian down towards the kitchen.

\--

The rest of the day is incredibly domestic and disgusting and Brian loves every single second of it.

Dowoon makes omelets - which are delicious, by the way, because Dowoon is literally perfect and it’s completely unfair - and they eat it at the small table, sunlight pouring in through the windows and filling Brian’s chest. It’s quiet, the two of them holding conversations in low voices, but they laugh and they joke and Brian tries not to think about how close he is - how, if he was better and everything was different, this could maybe be how the rest of their mornings go. Brian washes the dishes afterwards, simultaneously fending off a protesting Dowoon’s attempts at taking over out of ‘manners’, and they spend the rest of the day studying, pausing only for meals and for a short walk after lunch when Brian drags Dowoon outside.

“Come _on_ ,” he’d said, gritting his teeth because Dowoon is ridiculously strong, “we have to go outside at some point. I’m going to die if we spend all day indoors.” Dowoon had given up in the end, and they’d gone to the nearby playground, where Brian had climbed to the highest point on the structure and Dowoon had threatened to call the cops.

“If you fall and die I’m not paying the medical bills!” he’d yelled, shielding his eyes from the sun, but he’d been smiling so Brian had figured it was okay.

That was hours ago. Now they're here, sprawled out side-by-side on the living room floor, on the nice white carpet no one's allowed to bring food near. Brian's got his arms folded behind his head, ankles crossed, and trying not to think about Dowoon next to him. “Why me?” he asks, trying to sound nonchalant and not like he's been hyping himself up for this for five minutes. “Why did you open up to me, out of all people?”

“Did I really have a choice?” Dowoon deadpans, and Brian laughs despite himself, turning onto his side to look at him. Outside, the sun is setting, turning the sky red, liquid fire slanting over Dowoon’s face. This close, he can feel the other's breath on his lips if he concentrates hard enough, can memorize every stroke of eyelash against smooth skin. This close, he only needs to shift a bit - make it look like an accident, really - to close the distance between them. This close, he can't quite remember why he hasn't kissed Dowoon yet.

He really needs to stop doing this. Someday it's going to kill him.

He's so distracted with restraining himself from not doing something stupid and regrettable like kissing Dowoon that he almost misses it when the younger boy says, soft and precious, “because you saw me when I was invisible.”

And, well, fuck. Hearing something like that, how can he _not_ do something stupid and regrettable?

“Stop doing that,” he hears himself saying, thinks _oh no_ , does nothing to stop. “Stop doing things that make me want to kiss you.”

“What?” This close, he could shift a bit - make it look like an accident, really. Just to close the distance between them. Brian closes his eyes, because he's not sure he wants to see the look on Dowoon’s face.

“Would you stop me?” he mutters low, feels the other's breath stutter against his lips. “Would you stop me if I tried?”

Dowoon exhales, shaky. Brian braces himself, prepares to take damage control measures in case he's wildly misread the situation. But then: “No,” Brian hears, and his world cracks open. “No, I wouldn't.”

Brian’s eyes fly open. In front of him, Dowoon’s eyes are a little scared but soft, trusting. His hair is falling into his face, and Brian reaches out, instinctively, to brush it away, watching as the younger’s eyes flutter closed. _Why are you taking so long,_ his brain screams at him, but also _fuck, I don't think I can do this._

“Honey, we're home!”

Brian closes his eyes for a long, long time, and convinces himself that he loves his parents. He really does.

Dowoon is already on his feet, a slightly redder complexion the only giveaway to what they'd been doing. Brian looks up at him, feels the familiar rush of affection, and remembers _I wouldn't stop you._ He's not sure he wants to sit up.

So he lies there, listening to Dowoon fit in seamlessly with his parents, lies there as Dowoon finally convinces them that he should really be going home-   _no, don't go,_ he thinks weakly, but he's not sure he wants to sit up - and they see him out the door. Lies there as Dowoon calls out a hesitant “bye, Younghyun,” lies there as he hears the _what are we_ lying unsaid in the air. Lies there as the door clicks shut and sends him spiralling into despair.

Because Dowoon had wanted him to kiss him. Because, maybe, the concept of Dowoon liking him back isn't as outlandish as he’d thought.

“What are you doing?” his mom says, and he blinks twice before realizing that his parents are standing over him, looking confused and slightly concerned. “Why didn't you see Dowoon out?”

“I asked him if I could kiss him,” Brian says slowly, watches the expressions on his parents’ faces change. “I asked him if I could kiss him, and he said yes.”

“I'm sorry,” his dad says, as his mom tells him that there'll be dinner in the fridge when he's ready. They leave, talking in low voices, and that's that.

Brian doesn't get up for hours.

\--

They don't talk after that.

The next day is exam week and Brian plunges into it head-first. He doesn't look at Dowoon during the math exam, and Dowoon doesn't look at him; later, he buys Sungjin the promised banana milk and tries to ignore the worried looks the latter shoots him. He hangs out with Jae, avoiding the other's questions regarding the night before, studies some more, and before he knows it he's trudging home after his last exam, feet heavy but heart light.

He hasn't spoken to Dowoon in a week, but it's fine. It's not like he'd know what to say, anyways.

\--

He aces his math exam, and spends the entire night staring at Dowoon’s name on his contacts page, thumb hovering over the call button for what seems like hours before he gives up and goes to sleep.

\--

Second semester starts, which means no more first period with Dowoon - means no more Dowoon in general, actually. He has two classes with Sungjin, one with Jae and Chemistry all alone, which he spends on his phone or asleep. At lunch, they eat together, Brian taking the seat facing away from the table near the trash can; after school, he stays away from the arcade and the convenience store that sells lukewarm boiled eggs. He considers taking someone, his friends or parents maybe, to that music-filled street with all the lights on the river, but never gets around to asking.

(Maybe he doesn't want to.)

Sometimes, he passes Dowoon in the halls, flanked by fangirls. They don't acknowledge each other.

March break rolls around, and his family goes to France like the generic rich family they are. There, he meets a cute barista named Jackson, who's short but loud and whose uniform barely fits his broad shoulders. He's nice, funny, easy to talk to and easy to fall for, and they hit it off pretty well. On the last day of the trip, before he leaves the next morning, Jackson takes him on a date through streets lined with melting snow and warm lights. It's a little like looking through rose-colored glasses, and Brian laughs until his stomach hurts and eats greasy street food until he can't move, but when they say goodbye outside the doors of his hotel neither of them lean in. It says more about their relationship than either of them would like to admit.

Jackson gives Brian his number. “Isn't that breaking the sanctity of vacation flings?” he’d joked. Jackson had laughed, then, and said something that had kept Brian up at night for weeks after.

“It's pretty obvious it's not me you want,” he’d said, but there had been that familiar mischievous twinkle in his eye, like maybe he was feeling the same way. Brian could only laugh, heart heavy.

He hasn't spoken to Dowoon in two months.

\--

Sometimes he wonders what would happen if everything was different.

If his parents didn't come home until hours later. If he wasn't such a coward and hadn't taken so long, wasn't such a coward and asked ages ago. Because, really, the hints had been there for- for how long, now?

 _You always find me_ , Dowoon had said, just the night before.

 _I won't go anywhere,_ he’d promised, days before that.

 _What is this, Younghyun?_ he’d asked, weeks ago. Maybe they had been searching for the same answer.

Sometimes, he wonders how Dowoon would react if Brian approached him in the halls, if he shoved his way through the sea of fangirls and pulled him close and didn't let go. If he tucked origami hearts into his hands and did dumb things like stay at school overnight just for a chance to talk. If he teased him about how nice he’d looked in his clothes and how well he makes eggs and how he's not nearly as shy as he pretends to be.

Sometimes- sometimes he wonders. But it's not like he's brave enough to try.

Because this time is different from before. This time, he can't rely on anger or confusion or concern to push him through, convince him to do stupid things to make Dowoon come back. This time, all he’s got is a dumb, mutual crush that neither of them do anything about because they're both scared. They're both scared and so they do nothing.

Sometimes, though- sometimes he wonders.


	7. letting go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he comes back, with an armful of new clothes and exhaustion in his bones, the prom frenzy has already started.

“Please don’t make me do this,” Brian pleads.

“Come on, it shouldn’t be that hard,” his mom insists, pushing the Tupperware into his arms. “Just ring the bell, tell him we miss him and that he’s always welcome to come over again. You were basically best friends, what’s a little small talk?”

“Sungjin won’t be pleased to hear that,” Brian threatens, but he hears  _ basically best friends _ and grimaces. They were - he doesn’t know if he can say  _ are _ \- more than that, almost. If things were different, maybe they’d still be more than that. “And also, maybe don't send me there because if I saw him I might literally combust and you'll have to live with the knowledge that you killed your only child?”

His mom pauses for an inadequate amount of time in his opinion, then shrugs and says “It's okay, I'd still have Sungjin.”

“Oh my  _ god,”  _  Brian says, appalled. 

\--

In hindsight, he really should've protested more.

He's standing in front of Dowoon’s door, a nice house on a street lined with willow trees and well-kept flower beds. The Tupperware is heavy in his hands, and his heart is somewhere in his throat. Charles is waiting in the car behind him - a car he's seriously considering running back to, if Dowoon actually answers the door. 

He really should've protested more. 

He raises his hand, about to ring the bell, when he hears voices coming from inside the house, just loudly and angrily enough to make him pause. He feels terrible- he  _ really  _ shouldn't be eavesdropping on something like this- but he's a dumb teenage boy who doesn't really know shit about manners, so he stays nonetheless.

“Why the  _ fuck  _ can't you even do this right?” It's a woman's voice. She sounds like someone who wears red pumps and red lipstick, who'd smile at you to your face and whisper behind your back. “You're never going to get anywhere in life with that fucking empty brain of yours!” A crash accompanies the sound, and Brian winces and hopes it's not what he thinks it is. His heart is sinking like a stone to the soles of his feet, but he's frozen on the spot. “Your sister-”

“Why can't you understand that I'm  _ not my fucking sister? _ My sister's dead, goddammit! She's gone, okay?”

It’s Dowoon. Brian's world spins, tilts a little on its axis.

“It should've been you instead,” Brian barely hears it at first through the chaos in his mind, but once he does it's like the rest of the world turns into white noise. Anger boils, benign but not for long, just under his skin. “You should've died instead.”

“Maybe I should've,” Dowoon says, quiet, and Brian kind of wants to cry. There are footsteps approaching the door, and Brian only realises what this means when the door swings open and he's face-to-face for the first time in three months with snow and wine and beautiful, broken eyes. The chaos in his brain fades, dulls in comparison.

“Dowoon,” he begins, “I-”

“Get out,” Dowoon whispers, his eyes hard and a little crazed and maybe also damp, too, if Brian looked hard enough. He looks- he looks afraid, he looks tired, he looks frantic, and Brian doesn't want to say it but he also looks kind of- hateful. It sends him spiralling into darkness. “Oh my God,  _ get the fuck out.” _

“Dowoon,” Brian starts, but his voice sounds alien. His grip tightens on the Tupperware until it hurts. Behind him, Charles is still waiting in the car. “Dowoon, wait, I-”

“ _ I don't care, _ ” Dowoon snarls, and it feels like he's just punched Brian in the face. “Don't come near me again, okay? Ever. Stay as far away from me as possible.”

He shoulders past Brian, and when Brian finally has the energy to turn around he’s nowhere to be seen. He stumbles down the road- down, down, down- and climbs into the car with a resolute slam of the door. His head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. His heart is still somewhere in the soles of his feet.

“Take me away,” he pleads, and the desperation bubbling in his ribs must spill into his voice because Charles doesn't say anything, just nods and steps on the gas. “Anywhere but here.”

\--

Charles drops him off at a nice hotel where his parents know the owner and they give him a room on the penthouse floor without any questions asked. His phone is dying, but he calls Jae anyway.

He picks up on the 3rd ring. “Jae,” Brian says, breathless and dizzy and his world is still dark and crooked. “Jae, when you said he was living alone what did you mean?”

“Why?” There's a rustle of bedsheets, and Brian can picture Jae pushing his glasses up his nose on the other end of the line. “Brian, what did you see?” 

“I saw- I heard him arguing with his mom, and he saw me and he told me to leave and- and oh, god, Jae, he looked like he hated me. What do I do? What do I do when the person I lo- like hates me?” His hand is in his hair and tugging, hard, until his scalp is screaming almost as much as his mind. All the good memories he has with Dowoon are drip, dripping onto the floor, stained sepia with time and uncertainties. “Jae, what do I do?”

“Relax- Brian, hey, man, relax, okay? He might be better now but remember, he's still really messed up inside. If you're as close as I think you are, it probably just scared him to think that you knew something about him before he told you.” As Jae speaks, Brian sinks to the floor. Every word unravels a bit of the tension sitting within him, and by the time Jae is done talking everything seems a little clearer than it did before.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. “Yeah, okay, thanks. Thanks, Jae.”

Jae sighs, but it's more out of concern than any kind of exasperation. “It's no problem. Just- take it slow, okay? You can't  _ both _ be the angsty one.”

That works a laugh out of Brian, and they say goodbye and hang up. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, hair messy and eyes wild, and spends the next few minutes in the bathroom, washing up and very specifically not thinking about hatred and  _ stay away from me. _

He picks up dinner at a nice, hole in the wall kind of cafe staffed by a cute, bright guy who kind of reminds him of Jackson. He doesn't think about Dowoon. They talk a bit, but eventually Brian gets bored and Junhyuk - that's his name - has to close up and so he leaves. He doesn't think about Dowoon. He takes a walk around picturesque small-town streets, stops to pet a few dogs, sees a playground but doesn't climb it like he usually would because he doesn't want to think about Dowoon.

He's heading back to the hotel when his dad calls. They exchange a few words, and his dad tells him to take some time to sort things out and that he has to be home by Monday. They hang up. He doesn't think about Dowoon. He's done this once, before- disappeared for a weekend after failing his tenth grade math exam to escape and regroup. It’s fine. No one makes a big deal out of it, which is great.

He thinks about Junhyuk, again. Maybe he should've stayed a little longer. Maybe he should've spent the night talking in the darkness of a closed hole-in-the-wall cafe, watching the lights on the skyline glow. But no one can make time fly quite like Dowoon.

_ Stay away from me. Don't come near me ever again. _

Brian blinks the pain out of his eyes. He's in front of the hotel.

The rest of the night trudges by in the way you’d expect a relatively mundane night to pass - sluggish and hazy. He buys a charger for his phone and some clothes for himself because he didn’t bring any and goes up to his room to shower and lie in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling but seeing nothing. He tries not to think about Dowoon.

\--

He can’t stop thinking about Dowoon.

It’s hard, when someone who was so ingrained into your life is ripped out in the most unpredictable and painful way possible. It’s even harder when nearly every other guy he sees on the street has Dowoon’s haircut and Dowoon’s build but none of them are Dowoon. It’s even harder when he passes by music shops with drum sets in their display windows and he has to walk a little faster and remind himself to look straight ahead. It’s even harder when some people look at him like maybe they want to talk to him and take him out on a date because, he isn’t even that attractive but he’s got purple hair and dangly earrings and it probably makes him look more interesting than he actually is. Some people look at him like they maybe want to take him out on a date but none of them are Dowoon and all he wants is Dowoon.

But he can’t have Dowoon. He can’t think about Dowoon.

Dowoon, who is beautiful and kind but closed off and confusing and has all these emotions he doesn’t know what to do with. Dowoon, who looked at him with hatred and pain and told him to leave and never come back. Dowoon, who is made of snow and wine but also shadows and night time, and sometimes the clouds are so thick you can’t see the stars. 

Brian spends a whole day in that little small-town-like section of the city, trying not to think about Dowoon.

\--

When he comes back, with an armful of new clothes and exhaustion in his bones, the prom frenzy has already started.

He only gets a few invites, which he’s eternally grateful for, and makes plans with Jae and Sungjin to drink as much shitty fruit punch as possible and color-coordinate their ties. It’s terrible and cheesy but he almost relaxes, hanging out with them, and forgets about how Dowoon walks the other way when he sees him and leaves any room he enters. 

Oh, and there’s- there’s that, too. The Dowoon thing. 

The Dowoon thing where he walks the other way when he sees him and leaves any room he enters. It’s fine, really - hurts a little bit, but that’s what he took the weekend off for. So he wouldn’t be affected by things like Dowoon actively avoiding him. So he would be capable of ignoring stupid things like still wanting to kiss him and spend the rest of his life eating his omelets. So he could ignore the weird bubbly feeling under his skin. It’s fine, really.

But there’s also - there’s also this.

There’s also this: it’s two weeks before prom, when most have already secured their dates and the weird bubbly feeling under his skin has risen dangerously close to the surface, and he’s walking towards the cafeteria when he’s dragged into a dark corner of the school like the absolute shitfest his life has become. It’s two weeks before prom and the bubbles in Brian’s skin freeze over as he blinks, once, twice, not comprehending.

There’s also this: it’s Dowoon, across from him in a dark corner of the school.

Brian’s heart, which has been residing comfortably in his feet, is suddenly shoved into his throat. He feels like he can’t breathe, and the world, which had finally put itself back in alignment, falls apart again. He wants to leave, knows that’s the sane thing to do when the person standing across from him is the singular cause for all the shit that’s been going on in his life, intentional or not, but he can’t. What can he say? Dowoon is magnetic.

But he’s still a little hurt, can still remember the hatred and the  _ leave and never come back _ , so he tilts his head to the side and does his best to look utterly unimpressed as he says, “what do you want?”

Dowoon blinks, eyes wide but resigned. He’s close, so close, and Brian hates himself for being weak and wanting to close that small distance. “I,” he starts, but it’s then that-

“Excuse me, Brian?”

Brian turns his head, relieved yet disappointed. It’s a girl, in a few of his classes last semester and last year, too, a pretty girl who probably got no shortage of invites herself. “Go to prom with me,” she says, staring straight into his eyes with a defiance that people write songs about. Like a challenge, almost.

Brian’s eyebrows rise to meet his hairline, despite himself. Next to him  _ (next to him _ ), he can feel Dowoon stiffen. He opens his mouth, about to say no, because he feels something momentous happening here, but then his brain does a weird thing again and whispers,  _ why not _ ?

He looks at Dowoon. He looks back at the girl - Mina, he thinks her name is. And the thing is, he’s super gay and also really into Dowoon but then he remembers his heart dripping sepia onto the floor and chasing after a seemingly unattainable relationship and thinks,  _ why not? _

The thing is - the thing is, he’s  _ extremely _ gay but chasing after Dowoon is tiring and confusing, like looking ahead and seeing no horizon. The thing is, Mina seems like a genuinely nice, interesting person, like someone it’d be easy to get along with - and Brian needs that right now. The thing is, she seems like a good person and he doesn’t want to deprive her of her happiness just because - just because he’s a stupid boy with an incredibly gay crush. 

The thing is,  _ why not _ ?

So he does it. He steps away from Dowoon and towards Mina, out from the shadows and into the light of the bustling hallway, out from everything he’s ever wanted and into something he knows would never go past friendship. He steps away from something he maybe should’ve stayed for and towards something he maybe shouldn’t have given in to so easily and says, “why not?”


	8. how can i say?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck. Dowoon’s right - he needs to stop hurting him. He closes his eyes, regroups, and asks, “what does she do?” Dowoon looks confused, so he clarifies. “What does your mom do to you?”

“You should probably know,” Brian starts, as they’re meeting in the library at lunch to discuss how they’re going to coordinate their outfits and he’s effectively muted Jae’s texts screaming  _ TRAITOR _ , “I’m gay.”

Mina, seated across from him with her laptop open, double-clicks something. “I know,” she says, without even bothering to look up. 

Brian blinks. “Then why did you-”

Mina shuts her laptop, then, and fixes him with a stare that kind of mirrors the one he gives groupies trying to approach him after school. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, and Brian is beginning to regret a lot of things. “Because,” she says slowly, like he’s an idiot - she probably thinks he is, anyways. “You out of all people would understand why strangers shoving promposal cards into my face 24/7 is something I’d want to escape. So I figured,” she shrugs, “once word got out that it was  _ you _ I was going to prom with, they’d all leave me alone.”

That actually - it actually makes a lot of sense. Brian doesn’t know what to say except, “what do you mean, getting the hint? Why did you have to ask me?” There are more attractive people in the school - there are a lot, actually, all who are far more approachable than he is. 

Mina rolls her eyes like she doesn’t have time for any of this. It’s all very insulting. “Brian. Sweetie. Come on. You’re gorgeous and terrifying and your chauffeur looks like he could pick up the entire student population. There’s really no other option.”

“Oh,” Brian says, mind latched onto  _ gorgeous _ because, really, what? When? “How did you know I have a chauffeur?”

“You’re not slick,” Mina scoffs, examining her nail. “Try as you might, penguins in the North Pole could even smell the money on you. Hell, you look like you bleed the Chanel logo or something. Not that much of a stretch to think you’d have a chauffeur, too.”

“Penguins don’t live in the North Pole,” Brian says, which earns him a flick to the forehead.

\--

Jae and Sungjin, bless their hearts, call him a traitor and refuse to talk to him for a whole day after learning about the thing with Mina but for the most part don’t mention Dowoon.

Sungjin had - once. It was just the two of them, Jae disappearing to gaze wistfully at some pretty barista in a nice cafe, walking down the hill leading up to their school. He’d turned to Brian and said, breaking a long stretch of silence, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Brian doesn’t need to ask for clarification. “It’s not like that,” he says. “Mina and I are friends. She doesn’t expect anything more and I physically, like, can’t. Plus,” he shrugs, “Dowoon’s made it very clear that none of this affects him. In fact, he’s made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with me.”

Sungjin stares at him. _ " _ You don’t really believe that,” he says, more of a statement than a question. 

Brian just shrugs again. Sungjin sighs, in a way that tells Brian he’ll probably have his ear scolded off later when shit really hits the fan, but doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the walk.

(Brian kind of wishes he had.)

\--

And, just as he’d predicted, shit really does hit the fan.

It hits in the form of Sungjin seeking him out in the halls, eyes wide with frantic worry. “It’s happening,” he hisses, grabbing at Brian’s arm with an intensity that leaves crescent-shaped bruises in his skin. “Brian, it’s - he’s doing it. Jae’s talking to Dowoon.”

The floor drops out from underneath him, and he’s pretty sure Sungjin can feel his pulse quicken. “Shit,” he hisses. “Where are they?”

“They’re taking a walk outside,” Sungjin says, but grabs his other arm when he turns towards the nearest exist. “Brian - Brian. I know you care about both of them, but  _ don’t _ try to interfere in this. This is only between the two of them, okay? Okay?”

And - okay, yeah. That makes sense. Brian nods, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths until he’s capable of making rational decisions again. “Yeah,” he says through an exhale. “Yeah, okay.” He opens his eyes. “Let’s get out of here before I do something dumb.”

“Suddenly self-aware now, are we?” Sungjin teases, face relaxing a bit. “We should stay in the building, though, in case everything turns out terribly and Jae needs some shoulders to cry on.” He redirects Brian to the library. “Besides, I need to study anyways.”

Brian groans. “Sometimes I wonder why we're even friends.”

\--

It's about twenty minutes until the end of lunch when Sungjin tugs at his sleeve and points to a spot just outside the library doors. “Look,” he whispers, and Brian turns to see Jae and Dowoon walking by, chatting animatedly. Jae is gesturing wildly, probably telling some outlandishly exaggerated story, and Dowoon’s face is open and relaxed. It’s a sight, Brian realizes with a wrench in his gut, that he hasn't seen in a while.

A while ago- or maybe not that long, maybe Dowoon’s absence stretches time - he’d been the only person who’d been able to make Dowoon look like that, and he's a terrible terrible person because the thought of someone else seeing that smile makes something irrational clog up his throat.

He's out of his seat before Sungjin can stop him, running after the pair before he can stop himself. “Jae,” he calls out, because he's a terrible, terrible person. “Jae, hey, man, what's up?”

Jae turns, breaking out into a grin that makes Brian want to crawl into a hole and die. This is his best friend, who’s struggled with so many things for so many years and still talked him out of a full-blown panic attack, who keeps things to himself because he doesn’t want to inconvenience others, and he’s jealous of him for being happy? For finally coming to terms with his demons? For Brian himself being a coward and a dumbass and losing someone he never should’ve let go? 

“Hey, Bri-Bri!” The nickname normally would’ve made Brian roll his eyes, but he’s too busy simultaneously restraining himself from hugging Jae and very carefully not looking at Dowoon to do so. “Guess who finally manned up and did it,” he says, putting his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest in mock pride before shooting him a look like  _ now it’s your turn. _ Brian wants to take back everything he said about wanting to hug Jae.

“Congrats,” Brian says with as much sincerity as his pride will allow him to convey, clapping Jae on the shoulder in a gesture that he hopes will make up for his terrible verbal communication skills. From the way Jae’s grin widens, he’s pretty sure it worked. “So what are you going to angst over now?”

Jae laughs, and Brian notices just how happy he is. It makes something light and sunny fill him. “Sorry man, that part of my character has been effectively eradicated. Kind of a bummer, too, because I heard ‘dark and tortured’ is a real hit with the ladies. Either way, I have a thing to do, so see you guys!” He gestures vaguely in the opposite direction before running off, leaving Brian speechless and a little dazed and, most importantly, alone with Dowoon.

(He doesn’t see Sungjin and Jae high-fiving behind him.)

It's awkward- of course it is. Dowoon looks down at his feet for an infuriatingly long amount of time, but to be fair, Brian isn't any better. For all the time he spent imagining what he would do the day they finally came face to face, he can't remember anything he wanted to say. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, uncooperative.

Finally, Dowoon clears his throat, looks somewhere into the distance and says, “so you and Mina, huh?”

Brian laughs, but it comes out harsh and grating. “It's not like that,” he says.  _ Do you really think I could feel this way about anyone other than you? “ _ We're just friends.”

Dowoon smiles, but it's sad and forced and makes Brian wish he could man up and just kiss him. “She's pretty, huh? Seems really nice, too-”

“Dowoon,” Brian interrupts. “Dowoon. We are  _ friends.  _ I'm gay. I literally can't be attracted to her.”

Dowoon blinks. “Oh,” he says, finally meeting Brian's eyes. There's a small patch of purple at his temple, red branching out from a blotchy bruise, and Brian almost overlooks it before he remembers glass breaking within the walls of Dowoon’s house and his entire body goes cold.

“Dowoon,” he demands, stepping closer without thinking and missing the way Dowoon flinches, clenches his hands as if to stop himself from doing- what, exactly? “Dowoon, where did you get that?”

“It's fine,” he insists, which gets a scoff out of Brian. “It's really- I fell down the stairs.”

“Bullshit,” Brian spits. Dowoon winces but doesn't protest, which is all the permission Brian needs to step forward and take his face in his hands. It's easy, too easy, almost - like they haven't just spent three months not talking. Like they're not waiting for something more. 

Like this doesn't hurt the both of them.

Dowoon does this thing where he kind of just melts, but it only lasts a second before his eyes snap awake and he's stepping away, shaking his head. “Why?” he asks. “Why do you do this to me?”

Brian is feeling the worst kind of confused, and his hands, which have dropped back to his sides, are unbearably cold. “What do you mean?”

“You know it hurts,” Dowoon accuses, quiet in a way that makes Brian's heart wrench because it's the quiet he uses when he's on the verge of breaking. “You know it hurts me, every time you- everytime you do something like this. So why?”

Brian's throat feels like sandpaper, but he forces out a “You know why.” It comes out more bitter than he’d intended, and he can see Dowoon recoil.

Fuck. Dowoon’s right - he needs to stop hurting him. He closes his eyes, regroups, and asks, “what does she do?” Dowoon looks confused, so he clarifies. “What does your mom do to you?”

He watches the younger blink a bit. Then, “She throws things at me,” Dowoon says quietly, and Brian wants to punch someone. But the younger boy looks kind of like porcelain, vulnerable and delicate, so he stays still. “Sometimes- sometimes I can't dodge fast enough.”

_ Fuck _ . “Then why don't you-”

“Because I- she's not always like that,” Dowoon says. “Most of the time she's gone and when she's back she's okay, just a little distant. Sometimes she cries. Sometimes she- sometimes she's nice to me.”

“But that doesn't  _ matter _ ,” Brian insists, and this time when he grabs his shoulders Dowoon doesn't move away. He counts it as a victory. “Dowoon, she hurts you. That's it. That's all that should matter.”

Dowoon turns away, his brittle laugh echoing down the hall. The bell’s going to ring soon - Brian pulls Dowoon into one of the nearby storage closets to avoid the oncoming crowd. “What am I going to do, go into a foster home?” Dowoon says once he’s closed the door. “No one would want me, Younghyun.”

_ Younghyun.  _ Brian tries to commit the sound to memory. “I want you,” he insists, doesn't miss the sharp inhale Dowoon takes. His hands are still on Dowoon’s shoulders. “I want you, no matter what. I don't care what it takes.”

He wants to pull Dowoon closer, so badly- mostly because he's terrible at maintaining eye contact when saying something so cheesy - so he does, but the younger shrugs his hands off again and moves to leave. Brian tries not to do something permanently damaging like whimper. 

Dowoon opens the door, glowing in the light that spills in from the hallway. “Go to class, Younghyun,” he says, and it would've destroyed Brian if he'd spoken any less gently. “You're gonna be late.”

“Wait.” He probably sounds desperate, certainly feels that way, but Dowoon thankfully doesn't mention it. “I missed you,” he says, because better late than never, right? “What happened to us?”

Dowoon’s smile when he turns back is pained. “I still wouldn't stop you, you know,” is all he provides as an answer before he's gone.


	9. i can't stop loving you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want you to leave,” Dowoon says. “Don't go. Stay with me. Forever, if you'd like.”

“For the last time,” Brian says, “you look _fine_.”

Mina glares at him from the mirror in his entryway, busy fixing her hair. “That’s _exactly_ what girls want to hear from their prom date, thanks,” she says. “I don’t know how Dowoon puts up with you.”

“He _doesn’t,_ ” Brian reminds her. The one downfall to hanging out with Mina - other than the glaring from half the male population and the constant snark - is that she doesn’t pity him enough to spare him from constant reminders of how he’d fucked up. “He made that pretty clear, don’t you think?”

He’s looking at his shoes, but he can see her rolling her eyes nonetheless. “‘I still wouldn’t stop you from kissing me’? I don’t know, that sounds like a hell of a lot of putting up with you to me.”

“Am I allowed to not go to prom with you?” Brian mumbles.

The telltale click of heels gets closer, stops maybe two feet short of where he’s waiting in front of the door. Brian glances at the clock. Prom started ten minutes ago. “No, because I’m all you’ve got. Jae and Sungjin ditched you after you broke the vow of celibacy, remember? And you really don’t have any other friends.”

Brian winces at _vow of celibacy_. “Sometimes I really wish you’d have a less extensive vocabulary.”

“Feeling intimidated by my intelligence? Careful, that’s sexist,” Mina jokes, ushering him out the door.

\--

    Jae and Sungjin, as previously arranged, show up in eerily coordinated suits. They spend about ten minutes giving Brian the mock stink-eye before Mina gives up and lets him leave. “Slow dance with me later,” she’d made him promise, before going to flirt with the girl stamping their tickets.

    Huh. That actually - it actually makes a lot of sense.

    “I think I might be drunk purely off shitty fruit punch,” Jae yells over the bass booming out of the school’s low-budget speaker system, a cup of the aforementioned questionable red liquid clutched tightly in his hand. His glasses are reflecting the neon strobe lights and it’s kind of making Brian’s head hurt, but he looks happy and carefree so he doesn’t complain.

    “That’s just the sugar getting to you,” Sungjin says, standing to the side with a cup of water like the terribly responsible person he is. “You really should stop before you spend the last hour of prom vomiting into a school toilet.”

    Jae blinks, furrows his brows like something doesn’t make sense. “You’re right,” he says, before looking horrified with himself. The juice in his cup spills onto his hands, staining his exposed shirt cuff bright pink. Brian and Sungjin wince simultaneously.

    “When we’re in college,” Brian says to Sungjin, low and close to his ear to avoid being heard by their inexplicably inebriated friend, “when we’re in college, remind me to never let him near alcohol.”

    “Agreed,” Sungjin murmurs, before his eyes catch on something in his periphery and Brian can see something short-circuit in his brain.

    He turns in the direction of Sungjin’s gaze just as the girl who’d originally been manning the punch table takes off her apron and leaves. She’s replaced by a boy in a flowery dress shirt and diamond earrings that gleam in the brief pauses of darkness when they’re safe from the sweeping lights above, with the facial structure of a marble sculpture offset by shining puppy-dog eyes. He catches Sungjin’s eye just as he’s slipping the apron on, beams, and Brian can hear Sungjin choke. He tries not to laugh too hard.

    He turns to see if Jae’d noticed, somehow, through the haze of shitty fruit punch, only to see his only other friend disappear out the big double-doors of the school gym. He’s still a little clumsy and uninhibited, but his smiles have become less creepy and more endearing. Next to him, a pretty girl with long brown hair and a pencil skirt that suggests maybe a few years’ difference is laughing at something he’d said.

    Okay. Objectively, Brian knows he should be happy. But also, _what the fuck?_

    Resigning himself to at least a half hour of boredom before a slow song comes on and Mina forces him to dance, he picks a relatively isolated spot on the closest wall to lean against and sip his drink. It really does taste pretty shit, but it’s all he’s got. The air in the gym is stuffy, hazy with the crowd of teenagers packed in a little too tight, and he takes off his coat, rolls up his sleeves without thinking much of it. He gets a few glances after that, most of them suggestive, but he can’t really bring himself to care.

    It’s well past thirty minutes since the start of the night when he finds himself outside, brick replacing the gym mat behind his back. He’s got one foot propped up, and with his suit jacket tucked into his elbow and the top few buttons of his shirt undone, he feels vaguely like he should be holding a lit cigarette or something. Just to complete the aesthetic.

    His phone rings, vibrating against his thigh, and he fishes it out and answers without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

    “Younghyun.”

    Brian almost drops his phone.

    “Dowoon?” he asks once he’s regained purchase, too stricken to be embarrassed about how nearly reverent his voice sounds. “Uh… what’s up?”

    “Nothing much,” he hears, and then the rustle of - bedsheets? Fuck, Brian can _not_ be thinking about these kinds of things on school grounds. “How’s prom?”

    Brian can’t stop himself from blurting out, “It’d be better with you.” He blames everything on whatever was in that punch.

    Dowoon’s laugh crackles through the call. “What happened to ‘bad boy’ Brian?” he teases, and wow, this is so great but also what? What happened to all the avoiding and the painful encounters and the ‘I still wouldn’t stop you’? It’s almost like they’ve gone back to simpler times - months ago, next to that music-filled river.

    “Weren’t you the one who always said I’m less intimidating than I think I am?” Brian shoots back, but he doesn’t get a laugh this time, just a long stretch of silence as he rubs the toe of his shoe against the gritty sidewalk and pictures the ember of a cigarette burning between his fingers. He almost checks if he’s accidentally hung up or muted the conversation when a long sigh crackles through, making him brace himself out of instinct.

    “When did we start talking about each other in the past tense?” Dowoon says, and it kind of echoes Brian’s own question in that dusty storage closet. _What happened to us?_

    “When you stopped talking to me, that’s when,” Brian says, and he doesn’t mean to be accusing but maybe he’s been wanting to say this for a long, long time. He starts walking, out of the parking lot, off the school grounds - Mina can find someone else to slow-dance with, probably already has a certain ticket-stamping girl in mind - his feet taking him to the street of music and lights without thinking much about it. It’s not too far, a ten-minute walk maximum, and the streets at this hour are still filled with cars, headlights painting the creases of his shirt red.

    “You didn’t say anything, either,” Dowoon counters, almost, and Brian hears the click of a door opening and the telltale sound of traffic. “Where are you going?”

    “To that street,” he says, and something that feels a little like an opportunity leaves him feeling lightheaded. “The one with the music. The one you showed me. That night - it was a date, wasn’t it?” If they’re going to talk about _one_ thing they fucked up on, he reasons to himself, why not talk about _all_ the things they fucked up on? “Neither of us said it, but it was, wasn’t it?”

    “I’m glad you noticed,” Dowoon’s voice is all sarcasm and familiar biting wit and Brian feels stupid for wanting to cry. “I wasn’t exactly trying to be discreet - neither were you, for that matter. And the day after-”

    “-so domestic,” Brian chimes in, laughter bubbling up in his throat. He wants to scream at the sky - out of joy, more than anything. If Dowoon had been feeling the same things he had, if he’d been reading into it just as much as he had, if he’d _meant everything_ \- “You made me _eggs_ , for God’s sake. You wore my clothes to sleep.”

    “They smelled like you,” Dowoon confesses quietly, smile audible. “It was- I felt so creepy, but it was really nice.”

“Oh my God.” Brian buries his face in the hand not holding his phone, tries not to smile like a maniac. “And before, the notes and the fucking _egg_ and the texting-”

“I looked forward to that,” Dowoon admits. “Every morning. The flowers and the frogs and the hearts you wouldn't stop sending me for a week, like you knew how much it messed me up. Which, now that we're talking about it, how could you do that to me?”

“It's not my fault you look cute when you’re flustered, okay? Besides,” he realizes he's rounding the corner to the street and nearly trips, “What was with that day? When I went to your house?”

“I was scared.”

Brian jumps so high he escapes Earth’s atmosphere. Dowoon is standing in front of him, jacket billowing in the wind, holding his phone to his ear and looking at him with a quiet sort of fondness. It makes Brian want to melt.

“Dowoon, what-” Brian’s mouth is suddenly very, very dry. He licks his lips, and sees Dowoon’s eyes track the motion.

Dowoon closes his eyes, takes a deep breath like he’s bracing himself, and says, “my sister and dad died in an accident when I was nine."

The ground falls out from underneath Brian's feet.

“She was always the one with potential,” he continues after they've both hung up, holds a finger up when Brian tries to step closer. He looks so good, but so sad, and Brian feels like the shittiest person in the world for avoiding him for so long. “My sister, I mean. Her death was - it was a tragedy, but it was also a disappointment. My mom was aware of that, and took it out on me. That's why I- I got scared. I saw you there and I thought you would judge me and I got scared so I pushed you away because that's all I've ever known.”

“I would never judge you,” Brian says softly, and his feet move closer of their own will. In his periphery, he can see the gazes of passersby lingering on the two of them, but it doesn't matter to him. Right now, nothing else matters. “Even if you tell me to leave, I'll always come back for you.”

“I know that now, you dumbass,” Dowoon says, a little exasperated as he closes the distance between them and kisses him- gently, more of a flicker than anything solid.

Brian unravels anyway.

Instead of pulling away, he just stays there, foreheads and noses together. This time, there isn't any confusion or pain or parents coming home from work. There's just the two of them and a blinding, beautiful kind of clarity. “I was lying then,” Dowoon says. “I don't want you to leave. I don't want you to go. Stay with me. Forever, if you'd like.”

Brian closes his eyes. In the nearest bar, someone has started singing a love song, and it’s all incredibly cheesy but also kind of perfect. “I'd like that,” he admits. Then, because all his inhibitions have been reduced to zero, he adds, “You're beautiful, by the way. I know the actual phrase is ‘beautiful tonight’, but you're always- you never fail to take my breath away and I hate you for it. So much. It's so inconvenient.”

Dowoon laughs, and kisses him again. Brian kind of hates himself because, really, he was avoiding Dowoon in the hallways when they could’ve been doing this instead? “If anyone's inconvenient it's you, Mr. Ruin My Entire Life. You with your face and your stupid smiles and your stupid everything. I really, really like your face, did you know that? Actually, I really like all of you.”

Brian laughs, because this is how a confession should sound like. This is what they've been trying to accomplish all along. He kisses him back, because he can and because he'd probably combust if he didn't. “I really like all of you, too," he says, as the world around them turns. 

And, okay. Maybe that's an understatement - maybe he wants to say something more, and maybe Dowoon wants to say something more, too. Maybe less laughter and less kissing and more explaining. Actually, no - maybe more kissing. Maybe a four-letter word with all the weight of the past year behind it.

But it's okay. They have time for that. For now, though - this is enough.


	10. later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'all asked so here it is

“I  _ hate _ university,” Dowoon complains the moment he steps in the door, dragging his backpack petulantly behind him. 

Brian rubs his eyes, closes his laptop and walks over to him, laughing a little. He’s just finished a report for the HR department of his mother’s company; spent hours proofreading it, too, hoping to prove his worth besides just being the CEO’s son. “I’m guessing I don’t need to ask you how your day went?”

He just gets a glare in response before the younger is burying his face in his shoulder, wrapping arms around his shoulders and - wow. He’s been working out, if his biceps are anything to go by. It’s really hot. “I  _ hate _ university,” he repeats one last time into Brian’s collarbone before pulling himself away and sighing. “How was your day, Younghyun?”

“Better now that you’re here,” Brian says, grinning when Dowoon frowns and blushes at his feet, embarrassed despite their four-year anniversary coming up soon. “Had to deal with some shitty people talking about my privilege but hey, nothing new. Still want that double major?”

“Why did I decide to be interested in the worst subjects ever? Why can’t I be wired differently? Why can’t I just be you?” Dowoon unpacks the contents of his backpack onto the coffee table and stares at them with intense despair and contempt. Brian stifles another laugh. 

“You can’t be me because one, if you were me there’d be no you and that’d be a really shitty world to live in, and two,” he pulls Dowoon closer and presses a kiss to his temple, allows himself to squeal internally at how the younger visibly relaxes into his touch, “I’d be dating myself and that’s multiple levels of weird. Plus, my arms aren’t nearly as nice as yours.”

Dowoon leans his forehead against Brian’s, sighs and says, “I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Brian chokes, but Dowoon catches him before he can stumble back, smiling widely. “And you make fun of  _ me _ for getting flustered,” he teases, and wow, talk about unfair. The worst part is, Dowoon isn't even wrong. 

He watches his boyfriend quietly for a bit, probably grinning like an idiot. Definitely grinning like an idiot. “It's nice seeing you happy,” he says softly, watching his expression change from surprise to contentment.

“It's hard not to be happy when I'm with you,” Dowoon admits, and Brian chokes again because life is unfair.

“Dinner,” he says weakly, stepping away from a laughing Dowoon and pointing towards the kitchen. He's pretty sure the ideal domestic life doesn't usually include this much verbal harassment. “I'm going to go make dinner. Jae and Sungjin and Mina are coming over in four hours and we need to clean the house so they can destroy it again.”

“Sungjin’s bringing his boyfriend, isn't he?” Dowoon asks, following him across the house. Above, the obscenely large chandelier they've been talking about removing for months throws miniature rainbows across the floor. “Wonpil?”

“You mean the guy he spent 4 years figuring out how to ask out? Yeah,” Brian scoffs. Dowoon opens the glass cabinet and Brian reaches over his head without thinking, grabbing a cup the younger is too embarrassed to admit is too high for him to reach. And, okay, maybe he doesn't have to literally trap Dowoon between the counter and himself, but he sees Dowoon swallowing and blushing as he leans close and thinks there's really no other choice. 

Like this, it's not hard to find a kind of beauty in their everyday life, in their set routines and their shared closet and all their nonverbal cues. When Brian wakes up to Dowoon making omelettes, Brian's shirt falling off his shoulders. When Jae and Mina complain about how domestic and disgusting they are but he can see in their eyes that they're happy for him, and maybe a little jealous, too. When they're making dinner and Dowoon is already rolling up his sleeves to wash the vegetables.

“Hey,” Dowoon’s voice snaps him out of his trance, and he focuses back in on the sound of running water and Dowoon’s arms. (To be fair, he's always focusing on Dowoon’s arms.) “Are you going to just stand there and look at me all day?”

“I'd like to,” Brian says. He starts working, though, because Dowoon is still a little nervous around knives and pots and it's only been a year since his mother was arrested for domestic abuse. A year since Brian said “come live with me” and hadn't needed to ask twice. 

He watches Dowoon hum to himself, subconscious and just a little off key, and thinks maybe he was waiting for him to ask for a long time. 

Of course, this all happens while he's cutting tomatoes and staring at Dowoon, so of course he doesn't notice anything wrong until - hey, the knife handle is kinda slippery, isn't it? 

“Younghyun,  _ oh my god you're bleeding!” _

Okay. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here - like maybe don't stare at attractive people while cutting spherical objects because there's a reason the handle is so slippery and it definitely isn't tomato juice. Maybe also use the claw technique because there's a reason that shit is shoved down your throat your entire life and he's staring at it right now. Maybe-  _ wow,  _ that is a lot of blood.

“Ow, Dowoon, that hurts,” Brian hisses, as Dowoon rinses the blood out, forces him to sit on the ground and produces a first aid kit from some uncharted corner of the house to dab rubbing alcohol into the wound. He’d obsess over how doting and worried Dowoon looks, but the alcohol stings in the places where it gets underneath his skin and the tomato juice doesn't help either. He settles for putting his face in the younger’s shoulder and trying not to do something embarrassing like whimper.

“You're so stupid,” Dowoon mutters, the sentence punctuated by a sniffle, even though it's really not that cold and-

“Oh my god,” Brian says into his shoulder, incredulous, “Are you crying?” 

“Shut up,” Dowoon insists, and Brian watches in shock as a few tears drip onto his skin. “What the hell were you even doing?”

“Looking at you,” he admits, and Dowoon sniffles again in response. It’s really cute and Brian tries not to look at the part of his finger that’s bleeding profusely when he takes his face in his hands. It’s gross - they’re sitting on the cold kitchen floor and the alcohol and tomato juice is mixing with Dowoon’s tears and it  _ can’t _ smell pleasant - and they’re not going to finish cooking in time but Dowoon lets out a shudder and closes his eyes and that’s all he needs, really. 

“You okay?” Brian murmurs, scooting a little closer so Dowoon can bury his face in his shoulder and wrap strong arms weakly around his waist. He moves his hands from his face to his back, rubbing small circles into the fabric of his shirt. They stay like that for a little bit, and this kind of thing really isn’t out of place but it makes something new and a little scary fill him.

Then, after about five minutes, Dowoon lets out one final sniffle and says, “Do something that stupid again and I’ll kill you.” He pulls away - Brian tries not to comment on how damp his shoulder is - and goes back to taking care of Brian’s wound like he didn’t just spend the past five minutes crying over a cut. 

“Whoa, kinky,” Brian jokes, which is approximately when Dowoon pulls particularly hard on the gauze he’s wrapping around his finger and makes him yelp. “I won’t do it again,” he says, more sincerely, once Dowoon has stopped glaring at him. (It doesn’t quite have the intended effect when he’s still a little red around the eyes.) “I don’t want to see you cry again.”

“You laughed at me when we watched Titanic and Jack died,” Dowoon accuses, which makes Brian snort back a laugh. It earns him a smack to the shoulder, but it's too gentle to be anything but fond and neither of them say anything else for a while.

Brian thinks, though. Brian thinks about a lot.

The light is spilling through the windows and love is spilling through Brian’s ribcage, threatening to drown him but the sight of Dowoon, eyebrows furrowed in worry and frustration as he holds Brian’s hand like he’s afraid of breaking it, keeps the tides at bay. His flannel is slipping off his shoulders, and Brian’s shirt pokes out from underneath it - the same one he’d been looking for the entire morning. He smells like old books and sheet music and the coffee they wake up early to have together. Like this, Brian doesn’t understand anything except how lucky he is and also maybe a question that’s been sitting underneath his tongue for a while.

And - well. There’s blood on the floor and light illuminating Dowoon’s eyelashes and love, love, love spilling through Brian’s ribcage and he blurts out without thinking, “Marry me.”

Dowoon freezes, and doesn’t say anything for what feels like an eternity. Brian wonders if he should play it off as a joke, if that’ll make the situation worse. He feels wound as tight as a badly tuned bass; his heart isn’t beating so much as melting. 

Then, “Yes.”

Brian blinks. He doesn’t think he’s capable of seeing anything other than Dowoon. “What?”

“I’ll marry you,” Dowoon says. His eyes are shining, and he ducks his head to wipe at them. “God, Younghyun, if you make me cry  _ again _ I’ll punch you.”

“Please don’t, your punches hurt,” Brian says, but there’s something like laughter bubbling up in him as he takes Dowoon’s face in his hands again and kisses the tears away. “I love you,” he says, watches Dowoon smile, and adds, “but if we’re getting married you really need to stop practising the drums at three in the morning.”

Dowoon rolls his eyes. “I love you, too, but do I need to mention the five basses you have in our room?”

“Oh my god,” Brian says, horrified. “Jae and Mina were right. We  _ are _ disgustingly domestic.”

Dowoon lets out a breathy laugh. “I can’t believe I’m marrying you,” he says to the ceiling, like he’s asking why he makes these kinds of decisions. Brian can’t really blame him. “No ring or anything, either.”

“Hey, we have to follow the starving artist archetype, don’t we?” Brian says. “Young, broke, and in love. Jeez, Dowoon, you’re so uncultured.”

“Younghyun, we live in a  _ penthouse _ ,” Dowoon reminds him. “We have  _ five _ basses and a drum set. And  _ neither _ of us are artists.”

“You don’t know what I do while you’re at school,” Brian insists, which makes Dowoon swallow back a laugh. 

“You’re such an idiot,” he says.

“But you love me,” Brian teases. “Enough to marry me, apparently.”

“Yeah,” Dowoon says, and the way he looks at him is a little breathtaking. “Yeah, I do.”

And - well. What else is there to say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say "briwoon epilogue", "sungpil spinoff" and "jaehyungparkian college au"?


End file.
